Time to wreck your neck and bang your head, Nightrage are back again, not that they have ever been away for long. For the uninitiated the group were formed by Greek musician Marios Iliopoulos way back in 2000 and this is their tenth studio album. Marios quickly discovered that he had a severe case of Gothenburg syndrome and upped sticks from home to Sweden to start a musical career that has during its time had a near unending cast of participants. I’m not going to give you a rundown of them as I have done so before but we have many household names included in the revolving door line-up, some sticking around for just an album, some such as guitarist Magnus Söderman a long term comrade since 2016. Personally I have been into the band since debut ‘Sweet Vengeance’ of 2002 and just to give you a clue of the heavy hitters involved on that, we had Tomas Lindberg, Gus G and Bruce Lecercq joining Marios then. I’m sure you know them well. Always keeping us on our toes and bringing us bang up to date there is a noticeable shuffle involved since last album ‘Abyss Rising’ of a couple of years ago seeing new singer Konstantinos Togas joining the band.

Here we get a tried and tested formula of 10 bangers with songs averaging a 4-minute running time. Little fat is shown and after a quick battery introducing opener ‘Euphoria Within Chaos’ Kostas introduces himself with a massive leonine snarl. Rasping over the tumult of weaving riffs this is full of the energy you would expect. Thrashing melodic death metal is what we get with plenty of fire in the belly of the beast. Jagged grooves and the signature underlying guitar melodies that add a slightly sombre melodic approach litter the numbers and are quick to get in your head. Those who love the early days of bands such as Arch Enemy and The Haunted will no doubt be quickly fired up and the statement of song title ‘Persevere Through Adversity’ speaks for itself. Sure there are clean vocals on this one that might also have you thinking of In Flames but they do little to detract from the pumped up and enthusiastic nature of things. There’s no shortage of guitar soloing to wrap your head around either. The growls and snarls of the new singer fit in perfectly and yet again Marios has found a treasurable Greek addition to his well-oiled machine.

Spiritual freedom, egotism of the world’s inhabitants, technological dystopia and a world on a spiralling decline may all be subjects explored here but the upbeat energy never lets you dwell on the gloomy aspects for long. Perhaps the slightly dour acoustic guitar line such as on the intro of ‘Throne Of Melancholy’ may inspire a brief insular navel gaze but its quickly swiped away by an injection of infectious energy guaranteed to lift the spirits. Muscular posturing of near chest-beating levels accompanies ‘Dark Light’ and the elongated screams of the singer are totally venomous. It’s quite a surprise it wasn’t picked as one of the three singles but pretty much any track from the album could have been to be honest, there’s no weak links here as we pretty much romp through things. You could easily mention every track but that would be surplus to requirements. That said it would be impossible not to mention the title track which is left to last. Hang on to your hats, it’s a complete and utter raging beast and a thumper that proves the incendiary nature of the album is kept up to the very final notes. A solid album through and through but did we really expect anything else?

(7.5/10 Pete Woods)

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https://nightrage.bandcamp.com/album/remains-of-a-dead-world