RTS games sucks regardless your age.

Used to dig Dark Reign and Total Annihilation.

The second single "Andraste" is out.


I have mixed feelings on first listen. The main riff is pretty cool, and there is a lot of epic stuff going on throughout the second half. That said, once again some of the riffs just feel a tad familiar, making me worried how fresh this album is going to sound. Also, something about the way the vocals are done here just feels a bit messy. It's a good song nonetheless, and I have a feeling it will grow on me even more after I spend more time with it.

Ok that was much better. Much much much better.

Yeah, the bits I listened to are actually pretty good, and remind me of some of the better moments during their mid period. It feels like their more epic black/death sound but with a punky edge.

I still refuse to support these idiots because of their racist, sexist trash opinions, though.

Waaaay better than that aborted brain haemorrhage that was the first single. Makes me wonder why on earth they would lead with Guillotine.

The full album is now streaming on Season of Mists's YouTube:


On first listen it's pretty good. Better than Wildfire certainly. It's their most melodic and thrashy album in a while, possibly ever. Tons of catchy riffs all over this thing. A lot of clean gang vocals too. My biggest complaint right now is because almost every song tries to be super catchy and epic, it gets a bit predictable and homogeneous by the second half. Other than that, this is a winner. I can see many of these songs getting a lot of plays in the future. The opening title track is particularly killer.

Yeah, the album itself seems really enjoyable. The first single can now be excused.

First full listen and I'm very impressed! That single does seem to be the weakest track on here (I still like it) but the whole thing sounds killer!

Quite a bit better than "Wildfire" being an album that uses the same formula, far from the peak of the band and with obvious flaws but it's decent.

My ranking of their studio albums would be like this after this one:

1º: Phoenix Rising
2º: Unchain the Wolves
3º: Defiance
4º: Never Surrender
5º: Wildfire
6º: Cold Steel... for an Iron Age

Because Warslut wanted to make sure that people heard his alt-right diatribe.

Interesting ranking. Mine would actually be identical except with Cold Steel in second place and everything else bumped down a spot. I honestly don't understand the hate Cold Steel seems to have started getting in the last five years or so. Before that Cold Steel seemed to almost always be ranked on par with Phoenix Rising. To me it's not only one of their best albums, but one of the best black-thrash albums ever. Every song is a hit, to the point where it literally sounds like a best-of album.

In terms of their other stuff, I find Defiance pretty underrated and Wildfire pretty overrated. With a different production job, Defiance might have been better than Unchain the Wolves.

I'll never understand why people rank Phoenix Rising so high. A couple of great songs and the rest is below the standards of the surrounding albums for me.

New album was solid. Nothing crazy good, but enjoyable. My favorite would be Cold Steel... for an Iron Age, least favorite Phoenix Rising, everything else in the middle is interchangeable for the most part.

New album is slaying so far, really like pitch black night. Definitely their best since Cold Steel, strange that they chose probably their weakest song as lead single (though it's still not even that bad).

I always kinda liked it when they leaned more into the black-er side of the black/thrash meld. So I guess for me this is why I rank that album high on the list. Songs like Lone Wolf Winter and I Am the War God just do it for me.

Australia has a huge right wing problem.....and metal musicians seems to be falling for it. You ever notice that the biggest nationalistic mouths come from people in lands that were invaded and stolen by Europeans while nearly annihilating the natives?

^ Not particularly, from my experience. Canada isn't nationalistic in the slightest with the major exception of Quebec which is extremely nationalistic. I'm not sure that kind of generalization is worthwhile.

Conservatives in Australia and the US are extremely nationalistic.....in a land that was stolen by Europeans.

^ I have no experience with those countries, that's why I shared my perspective as a French Canadian. The Europeans conquered the shit out of Canada too if you didn't know.

I don't know too many Canadian right wingers. I'm talking about those who speak the loudest and scream about "their" country. I know that Canada was conquered too and their history with the natives is just as awful.

The right wingers also just had their arses handed to them in the federal election, and also in the recent Victorian state election.

It's more a very loud minority than a huge problem.

Thank you. I stand corrected. Glad its not as bad as here.

Well, those are two that I love haha. The others just seemed okay to me.

Phoenix Rising works to me not just because it has some excellent songs (in addition to the two mentioned above, I also think "Rise of the Predator" is fantastic), but also because of how well it works as an album. I think the songs complement each other in a way that makes the record more than the sum of its parts. Every song has its own character, stands out in its own way, and is placed in the tracklist to best complement the tracks near it. I think "The Last Revelation" is pretty mediocre on its own, for instance, but coming after the scorching riffs of "Rise of the Predator," it provides a nice breather before the title track kicks things back into gear. Likewise, the stomping and straightforward war march of "The Eternal Glory of War" works really well after the charging epic riffs and faster tempos of "I Am the Wargod." "Ride the Solar Winds" provides a soaring and atmospheric slice of black metal late in the runtime (and has some fantastic riffs of its own) before "The Birth of Tragedy" kicks things back into gear and ends the album with easily one of my favorite riffs of all time. The album is a bit more of grower than Cold Steel, but I'd encourage giving it another shot if you haven't. Obviously musical taste is subjective, but I consider Phoenix Rising one of my favorite albums of all time (if not my #1).

I think that's a pretty good observation; Phoenix Rising has always been my favourite D666 record but I never really thought of it that way. But perhaps the reason I'd spun it front to back far more times than the other record is how beautifully it flows from beginning to end.

On another note, I'd also argue that Phoenix Rising was one of the rare instances where D666 actually had intelligent, thought-provoking lyrics.......at least on some songs. Okay, 2 of them. The Last Revelation is a well composed lyric with an interesting twist at the end, and I've always loved The Birth Of Tragedy. I'd love to know the lyrics to Ride The Solar Winds as well, but for some reason they didn't publish them (at least, not from what I can see).

The first verse of 'The Last Revelation' was an uncredited poem, if I recall correctly.

Been listening to this on repeat. I enjoyed Wildfire, but this beats it. Probably their fourth best behind (in order) Cold Steel, Phoenix, and then Unchain the Wolves.

Grave Raiders is such a bangin’ track.

Phoenix Rising has great songs, but the drum sound is unfortunate.

Cold Steel is awesome and thrashes the fark out of most albums.