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Isn’t it nice when a band graft and graft, getting incrementally higher with every launch, constructing a fanbase from nothing that will get that little bit greater and little bit extra dedicated as every album cycle come round? It’s not simply nice; it’s extraordinarily uncommon within the fashionable period. It used to occur frequently – see everybody from Meshuggah and Devin Townsend to Gojira. For those who’re one thing of a traditionalist, that is an concept that represents doing it “the best means”.
Properly, for any traditionalists on the market, Orbit Tradition are positively doing it the best means. The Swedes’ fifth full-length could not include an overload of hype and wild claims made on its behalf, however Dying Above Life will undoubtedly see them ascend quite a lot of rungs on the heavy metallic ladder.
It’s a fantastic factor to see. The band’s final two albums, 2020’s Nija and 2023’s Descent, marked them out as masters of their craft, resulting in excursions with the likes of Trivium and opening the primary stage at this yr’s Obtain Pageant. Dying Above Life is one other document stuffed with gimmick-free, easy, melodic fashionable metallic, performed with ardour, ingenuity and coronary heart, so it is best to anticipate much more high-profile alternatives to return their means.
The album begins robust with the incredible Inferna, all large, juddering riffs, sandpaper-rough and uncooked vocals from frontman Niklas Karlsson and a top-class melodic hook. You possibly can hear the lineage of melodic demise metallic’s most interesting in right here – Carcass, At The Gates, Soilwork – however there’s additionally a up to date sheen within the band’s personal manufacturing that makes all the things bolder, cleaner and crisper. The chaotic rhythms of Bloodhound are even higher, recalling the manic, industrialised extremity of prime Strapping Younger Lad. It may be the very best tune on the album, though there’s loads of competitors for that title.
A lot of Dying Above Life is completely thrilling. The Tales of Battle is Meshuggah-style demise metallic increase and burst; Hydra options some completely breathtaking half-time headbanging grooves; and the title monitor’s, stomping, crushing tech metallic will instantly weasel its means into your thoughts. The symphonic, chugging, black metal-inflected The Storm, with its spectacular lead guitar work, and the Concern Manufacturing unit/Static-X-aping demise dance of Impartial Collapse add additional strings to their bow.
With an album as robust as this, Orbit Tradition actually ought to now be thought-about as professional contenders for heavy music’s subsequent large breakthrough band for followers of contemporary, however classically impressed, metallic, very similar to Lamb Of God and Machine Head have been up to now. Clearly, it’s a special period in 2025, however if you wish to reward a band for striving for fixed enchancment, an indefatigable highway canine perspective, working arduous and, sure, doing issues “the best means”, then there’s actually no means try to be ignoring Orbit Tradition.
Dying Above Life is out this Friday, October 3, by way of Century Media
