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THE WATCHER
Out Of The Dark

Cruz Del Sur Music (2024)
Rating: 7/10

I can’t remember when I was first introduced to this Boston, Massachusetts-based three piece but it must’ve been just after their 2021 EP, Your Turn To Die, was issued. At the time it was a fleeting meeting that must’ve been so brief that I failed to latch onto the band. Shame on me. Thankfully though I’ve been given a second chance with The Watcher’s debut full-length album, an intriguing séance of sounds that flirts with both heavy and doom metal in equal measure.

Vocalist Paden Reed has an interesting style, warbling at times like Glen Danzig and then like some rustic yet long forgotten New Wave Of British Heavy Metal singer. The whole vibe here is unorthodox yet familiar, the band providing fluid excerpts of Corrosion Of Conformity on ‘Burning World’, slipping effortlessly from dark, heavy rock to gloomy meandering tinged with traditional nuances.

There are whiffs of Pentagram on ‘Thy Blade, Thy Blood’, but much of what is served here drifts towards a Diamond Head-style of rockin’ married possibly to something like Tygers Of Pan Tang, and yet ‘The Final Hour’ veers into power metal territory. For me though the band seem most comfortable circa that early 80s NWOBHM as evident on ‘Strike Back’ and ‘Kill Or Be Killed’, both of which are gritty, riff heavy and swaggering. Out Of The Dark is a strong debut album from a band with a great future ahead.

Neil Arnold

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