6 Great new metal albums with a vintage aesthetic

Metalheads are just as nostalgic as anyone else. Don’t let us tell you otherwise. Sometimes it’s for the lo-fi early ’90s sound of Norwegian black metal, and sometimes it’s for that burst of creativity that happened in the 2000s, when labels such as Hydra Head and Southern Lord began to flourish, and we all heard Leviathan for the first time. (Guilty as charged—made me fall in love with metal again.) And even more than five decades after heavy metal’s birth, bands are still drawing inspiration from bygone eras—Sabbath worship never goes out of style, but neither does kneeling at the altar of Maiden, Slayer, and Mercyful Fate. The classics are, after all, classics for a reason.

As I was poring over the best albums in metal of the past month and change, I was struck by a sense of familiarity in much of the albums that rose to the top. Many of them drew inspiration from the riff-slinging heyday of the 1980s, some of them dipping into the early ’90s with the outgrowth of black metal. None of them pure pastiche (well, OK, that’s not true—some of them definitely are), but all of them showcasing influences that most metalheads know and love. So this month, I’ve selected a half-dozen metal essentials with an ear for the old school, and a yen for the classics. Put these in your tape deck and crank ’em.

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Venator – Psychodrome

Though they only began releasing music in the 2020s, you’d think Austria’s Venator were beamed in from 1983. Their typeface and album art alone evoke the golden age of heavy metal, and the intro to their new album Psychodrome sounds like a remastered VHS horror theme. But once the riffs get going, oh baby. This is vintage heavy metal at its best, roaring with energy and more hooks packed into one song than most contemporary metal bands would know what to do with. It’s definitely not extreme metal, if that’s what you’re in search of—unless you mean extreme fun. Because brother, this is as fun as it gets.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Phantom – Tyrants of Wrath

It won’t surprise you a lick to learn that there have been several metal bands over the years named Phantom—and there’s ample reason for that to be the case, it’s a good name! This is the latest of that lineage, a group from Guadalajara, Mexico whose press photo involves lots of leather and medieval weaponry and whose album art features a dude who looks like Skeletor wasting some barbarian guys. Oh, and they sound like vintage Slayer, unleashing high-speed thrash mayhem with melody to spare. Phantom unload just about every trick in the book within the first few tracks, be it relentless speed and squealing vocal highs (“The Tower of Seth”), blazing solos (“Violent Invasion”) or a dramatic finger-tapped intro (“Thunderbeast”). This is the loud, obnoxious music that your jerk-ass older brother listened to and turned you into a lifelong diehard of metal.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Sanhedrin – Heat Lightning

Brooklyn’s Sanhedrin have been sharpening their blades for a full decade, and the commitment to their craft shows in the group’s heroic and soaring fourth album, Heat Lightning. Though that’s hardly the beginning of the story—the heavy metal trio has a long and impressive collective resume that includes bands such as Black Anvil and Amber Asylum, so the righteousness of their riffs and the glory in their anthemic choruses should come as no surprise to anyone who’s kept up with the members’ other projects over the years. All the same, Heat Lightning is particularly kickass, Erica Stoltz’s operatic vocal prowess and Jeremy Sosville’s hell-bent-for-leather guitar licks just crying out for a pair of aviators and a revved up hog. Though while Priest, Dio and early Motley Crüe are where their loyalties are, occasionally they nod to a group like thrash legends Anthrax with the gang vocals on “Above the Law,” suggesting that there’s a whole spectrum of ’80s sounds they hold in high esteem.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Final Dose – Under the Eternal Shadow

We tend to think of black metal as an export from the ’90s, which in large part it is, but let us not forget that it took root in dank dungeons, haunted forests and viking ships in the 1980s, through raw documents such as the early recordings of Bathory and Hellhammer. Final Dose, the project of Londoner Bruno Fusco, draws heavily from such vintage brutality on new album Under the Eternal Shadow, resulting in some of the most fun and visceral black metal/hardcore punk hybrids that I’ve heard in the past half-decade or so. There’s no unnecessary polish to get in the way of their demonic bashing and hedonistic roar—just riffs, fuzz (distortion and medium fidelity), goblin hiss and attitude. Usually a little of this kind of thing goes a long way, but I’ll welcome as much of this as Fusco is willing to give.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Zeicrydeus – La Grande Heresie

I knew Zeicrydeus would be a different kind of black metal band when their Bandcamp page said they were recommended for fans of Manowar and German power metal band Running Wild. The project of Phillipe Tougas (Worm, Atramentus, so many other bands), Zeicrydeus draws heavily from the Greek black metal scene of the early ’90s, but it’s heavily swirled in with elements of classic heavy metal—its flair for drama, its unabashed pageantry, the occasional clang of an Iron Maiden-like bell, and on moments like “Sous L’Ombre Éternelle Des Vestiges D’Heghemnon,” the swagger and gallop of speed metal with a bassline seemingly plucked from a gothic rock record from the same era. Though this self-released tape is just the first taste, I get the feeling we’ll be hearing a lot more from a project that’s already this strong out of the gates.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Messa – The Spin

Messa’s outstanding new album, The Spin, inspired the theme of this month’s column, as they set out to draw a greater influence from the 1980s with their latest album. Only they did so less with ’80s metal than post-punk and new wave. Don’t mistake me—this is a metal record, and a spectacular one at that. But Messa seem just as invested in the early post-punk sounds of Killing Joke and Xmal Deutschland on The Spin as they are with vintage doom metal and the other sonic strains that make their way into the mix (like the jazz fusion direction they take on “The Dress,” which is a wild ride—one I’d gladly hear them keep on taking). As I mentioned in my review of the album, this might not quite sound like the ’80s as you remember it, but their version is even more interesting than the real thing.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)