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WATCHER
Key To The Unbreachable

Turborock Productions (2024)
Rating: 7.5/10

Key To The Unbreachable is the debut full-length album from Watcher, the solo project of Viktor Gustafsson who sang for Stockholm act Lethal Steel. Gustafsson has assembled ten songs, all of which sound as if they were recorded in 1985. If you like your heavy metal stormy and stuffy, then look no further than the dense fog bank which erupts from your speakers when you slap this on.

Like a lot of European material churned out in the 80s, this record has a demo vibe which, back then, was down the fact that bands had no money, but nowadays artists are eager to recreate such lo-fi madness. When opening tune ‘The One Who Reigns’ kicks in I can’t help but hear Swedish band Mercy who were fronted by one time Candlemass monk Messiah Marcolin.

A misty canopy hangs over this release, but such doomy webbing cannot contain the thunderous roars of Gustafsson who boasts that wholesome, commanding nature. The album drifts between the emphatic and majestic, as well as the anthemic and straight up steel as numbers such as ‘Fight Back’ border on speed metal. ‘Hatets Atlantis’ exhibits the more extravagant side of Watcher, although with a Manilla Road stuffiness it manages to coat its armour in stodge.

The production gives the album that air of 80s authenticity, but to an extent it also dampens down the heaviness as if a wet towel was cast over the sound. Even so, songs like ‘The Lonely Kestrel’ and ‘The Hulder’s Gaze’ maintain that gloomy air, but when the mists become too thick brisk tracks such as ‘The Watcher’, ‘Intill Hans Borg’ and ‘Coming Down’ gallop away the cloying vapours with their confident power metal strides.

With Lethal Steel on hold, Watcher has risen from the stagnant pool and with one flap of leathery wings emits a stench of damp last inhaled during a time when all these tremors were new and exciting.

Neil Arnold

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