Flying the flag for traditional heavy metal and powerful, real metal female vocals, Huntress come from California. As I make my opening statement declaring real female metal vocals, it’s an interesting fact that singer Jill Janus (aka Penelope Tuesdae) trained as an opera singer. Other members of this band have featured in Skeletonwitch and numerous other projects. The combination of metal styles and clear love for what they are doing chastise your hearing in a pleasurable sense with elements of the said traditional speed and metal bands from the USA, with some vocal phrasing and musical rhythm structures that even reminds me of some Mercyful Fate avenues of execution as in the track ‘Snow Witch’.

This did take me a few listens to actually agree with my need to like this album a lot, playing on different stereo systems rather than in the car really helped a lot. It is therefore justified with so with many play outs, I would commend you all to listen to this properly, not as background music, but as a living and breathing metal entity. Tracks such as opener ‘Spell Eater’ may have the ferocity associated with some Swedish black metal bands but the basis of the track is in the proper metal camp. If you listen to some of the screaming angst, and ripping guitar structures, they are layered with an element of content that is usually only reserved for the very best in class, well, in my mind anyway. Throwing caution out of the window, Huntress continues to impress with metal monsters such as ‘Children’. This in itself takes you to into an eerie guitar tone, a thundering drum roll laden intro into a piece of music that retains vibrancy and also some of the power of what the US band Hellion and Ann Boleyn could muster a good few years ago. Ha, there are death howls, a little of everything, the balance is pretty perfect to be honest. My only criticism of this album is that some of the tracks sound a little quieter in the mix to some of the more lively numbers, but like all men (& Women!), if you play on ten, then yeah, rejoice in this glorious achievement from an unlikely location of this mortal coil.

Huntress has the ability to rip out your soul a tear you a new level of respect for music that is thankfully hitting all the popularity stakes at the moment. In the bands favour, Huntress is not another also ran demo band, this is the real deal, I like this, and you should like this too, I love this style of metal!

(8/10 Paul Maddison)

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