Beyond the Blood Red Horizon

So I was sorry to see that Metal Inquisitor broke up, but as I often do, I hunted around to see if the band members surfaced in other projects. Midnight Rider is actually a side project of Metal Inquisitor mainman/guitarist Jochen Blumenthal, and has been going for a while now, as this is their second full-length in a career that goes back like 18 years.

Very much a classic metal band, this is like if Metal Inquisitor had decided to go a more Sabbath/Cirith Ungol direction with groovy riffs and smooth vocals. This kind of thing lives and dies by the riffs, and a lot of the riffs on here are compulsively hooky, making tracks like "Majestic Warfare" and "Intruder" into true old-school workouts. There's a similarity to other stripped-down, doomy bands like Upwards of Endtime or Hour of 13, but overall I find this less consciously retro and more just trying to write good songs. Definitely one to check out.