Listen, if you clicked on this review, and as a result are angered by the band’s silly, tongue in cheek, self deprecating, metal mocking, style of metal, what were you really expecting? You see the moniker, you see the album name, you see the goblin. Take your ‘metal is serious’  and ‘no gimmicks’ comments elsewhere, ‘cos this is fun as shit.

I first discovered Nekrogoblikon and their space travelling goblin,  costumed mascot for 2015s Heavy Meta, and not much has changed. The band still ply a form of silly, but catchy, keyboard infused, modern melodic death/power metal with a bit of a The Black Dahlia Murder backbone (complete with raspy vocals) and some definite Dethklok (Brendan Small wrote and directed the video below) and power metal bits thrown in among the goblin themed numbers. But it’s well played, fun, and at times, downright addictivley catchy and silly.

Look no further than the above video for “Dressed as Goblins”, “Row”,”Dragons” or “The Skin Thief”  for a quick snapshot of the band’s damn rollicking sound, and there are actually some really good, well structured, developed songs here such as “The Many Faces of Dr Hubert Malbec” and “Darkness” which show these guys are way more than a gimmick, with actual riffs and clean choruses to die for. And there are some even zanier moments later on the album such as the utterly absurd  lullaby-ish “The Magic Spider”, ” polka/banjo throwdown of “Killing Time” and the closing 80s pop/hair ballad “Goblins”, which my wife actually ended up singing/humming while walking around the house, much to her chagrin.

Listen, I’m not typically a big costume/joke/gimmick metal guy, (let’s be honest almost all Viking metal is a gimmick) there has to be some actual good music. I kinda dug Dethklok and even Lordi for a while, but that’s about it, and full confession, I happen to think Gwar and Ghost are awful. But when the songs are this damn solid and memorable  as opposed to completely inane like say Mac Sabbath or Okilly Dokilly, I’ll take the costumes and gimmick gleefully.

[Visit the band's website]

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