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ASCALON
The Black Library

Self-released (2025)
Rating: 7/10

The debut full-length album from UK tribe Ascalon is a treasure trove of influences ranging from Blind Guardian and Twisted Tower Dire to Amulet and Iron Maiden. It’s also an album that had me asking, why has it taken 13 years to get round to releasing such a mystical metal opus?

Ascalon first appeared way back in 2012 on a split project with Asomvel, Wytch Hazel and Eliminator and the following year the guys released a solid demo boasting three cuts, ‘Steel Nights’, ‘Ascalon’ and ‘Vigilante’. This trio of tracks then appeared three years later as bonus tracks on their 2016 Reflections EP. It was a mature and fluid piece of work which suggested that Ascalon could be the next big thing on the UK scene, and yet the band seemed to vanish. But now, just shy of a decade later, fate has given the guys another chance and The Black Library is the result.

With a cover image that looks like a fusion of popular 80s toy line He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe and the 1985 album Second Attack by Belgium’s Crossfire, The Black Library is splattered with Warhammer 40k references and it drives like a mid-80s metal mini bus!

Ascalon boasts a sense of the dramatic and the epic, particularly in the vocal performance of Matt Gerrard whose warbles skim the treetops through the striding ‘Thousand Sons’, the fizz of ‘Event Horizon’ and the truly epic ‘All Empires Fall’. The band drift effortlessly towards European power metal and even doses of Dio (‘Edge Of The Rainbow’ is a sturdy tribute to the great Ronnie James).

There’s a lot of grit to Gerrard’s vocals too; he’s a commanding presence as drums and bass collide like molten slabs of steel. This is classic heavy metal with plenty of traditional galloping, dashes of subtlety, striking axe execution (‘No Worlds Left To Conquer’) and even a glimpse of thrash (‘Staff Of Stars’).

Ascalon don’t offer anything that’s not been heard before, but the rich tones expressed result in a fiery exercise to combat dragon breath. Good stuff.

Neil Arnold

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