Leach – Lovely Light of Life

Brutal Records    release: 21. Mai 2021

Right from the start you can guess that this is high quality from the far north. That’s right – those Swedes deliver first-class Melodic Death/Thrash Metal in Scandinavian style, respectively Thrash’n’Roll according to their own definition. Well, OK, that’s another way how you can describe it. 🙂

All the songs are a 100% win throughout, first class songwriting with the right amount of aggression and groove, plus the genre-typical Punk-HC screaming vocals with occasional growls. Among my favorite songs are Trench Walk, Scorched Earth, Sweet Blasphemy – which doesn’t mean that the other songs are worse…

In short, I find absolutely nothing to complain about in this third Leach album, produced by Christian Silver at Studiomega (he has worked with Arch Enemy, Kreator, Soilwork and Dragonforce, among others). With their mixture of Thrash, Hardcore and Rock ‘n’ roll, they can certainly make it big – possibly with this very album. The only thing that is missing for me personally would be a trademark effect for Leach songs, I somehow had to think of Soilwork or Bloodred Hourglass when first listening into the stuff…

Tracklist:
13. Prelude
14. Serenade (For The Broken Brave)
15. Carry The Stigma
16. Trench Walk
17. Scorched Earth Tactics
18. Aniara
19. True North
20. Down For Counting
21. Vultures
22. Gaslighting
23. Sweet Blasphemy
24. D.O.D (Feat. Bjorn Strid of Soilwork) (Bonus track)

Lineup:
Anders Nordlander – Bass
Joachim Dahlström – Drums
Markus Wikander – Vocals and Guitar