Metalium – Grounded Chapter VIII

As the title betrays on its own, this is the 8th chapter in Metalium’s journey to heavy metal. They have been accused many times of being out of time, out of place and out of inspiration, but this time, they managed to release something which certainly has quality. Of course the breakthrough was made mainly on their first album, where also Mike Terrana and Chris Caffery took place, but there has been more than a decade since then.

On ”Grounded – Chapter VIII” things get straight from the beginning with the song ”Heavy Metal”, where Henning Basse begins saying ”we are heavy metal and if you don’t like it, fuck off”. Well, it is not up to us to judge how much such statements will find response here, we know that they are true metalheads but what we are mostly interested in is the containt of this release. And that’s what we’re about to judge here.

So, the result doesn’t differ that much from the seven previous Metalium releases, we have fast songs, mid tempo heavy compositions and some more mellow parts. Ok, they don’t get the prize of being different for sure, but on the other hand, when a successful recipe changes we always tend to nag. So it’s all about what someone wants from his music. Power metal fans will surely find it more than average I guess.

The lyrics keep talking about epic stuff, battles, fantasy and what they have been known for these 10 years they are active. It is something worth pointing that eight albums in ten years is not something we get used to by bands, either old or new. I know bands existing for 20-25 years and they haven’t even reached eight albums. Quality is questioned of course throughout the years but at least they are trying.

This time it seemed that they had some more inspiration than in previous albums, it sounds to the point and though it has some fillers, in conclusion it’s something you could easily listen to again. It’s not their best, as it’s not also their worst album, so things get to be somewhere in the middle. Unless you like growls, blastbeats and the rest extreme stuff, I think you’re gonna like it. I did and I hope they will get even better, like they did in the beginning. We can’t have it all in life though, so for the time being let’s stick to this one.