Review by Vladimir on March 26, 2024.

It’s time to enter the cyberpunk world of the new output by the German heavy metal band Inner Axis, as I dive deep to take a look at their third full-length album Midnight Forces released on March 22nd, 2024.

Inner Axis strikes hard and fast with their melodic heavy metal that carries strong cyberpunk themed influences on its shoulder, showcasing some powerful and heavy guitar riffs, majestic guitar solos, dynamic drumming and high singing clean vocals. Their style as a whole does border with power metal and progressive metal on some instances, however they always keep the primary heavy metal aspect at all levels without straying far off their course. Some of their songs also have references to the 80’s as well, ranging from G.I. Joe on 'Strike Of The Cobra' to Boba Fett from Star Wars on 'This Is the Way' and of course 'Evil Dead' which is more obvious. Throughout the entire album, you are sure to come across some moments that display the band’s powerful performance, whether it’s the riffs, the solos or the choruses, but the badass sixth track 'Spartan War-Cry' is possibly where their performance has reached its peak.

Their dynamic songwriting has proven to be effective throughout the entire album, where you truly get a feeling on certain occasions that something wild or exciting is about to come to play. All of their songs have a sense of strong stylistic consistency, but they also manage to keep the attention going as the album progresses. I like the fact that most of their songs are energetic and uplifting, with the only exception being the final track 'Blade Of Glory' that is slower and more emotional than the rest. I personally liked the vibe of the album, however I did struggle a lot to find a strong connection to the songs because sometimes they felt “more of the same” and really not as effective as they should have been. Some songs are generally okay and outstanding, but the rest just feel like they repeat the same formula to keep the album going rather than take a chance to really surprise the listener. The only real downside of this album for me is the cover art, which depicts the band members in a cyberpunk world, clad in futuristic police enforcer uniforms. Personally, I am not against the decision of the overall depiction, but I just generally dislike the fact that the entire band was inserted into the cover with photoshopped uniforms which makes it look silly and goofy as hell. I can overlook the fact that they completely covered the cyberpunk background, but the execution just does not look good to me, and I would have preferred if they were properly drawn rather than use one of their latest photoshoots and just edit it. The album sounds very good production-wise, and I generally like that they made the guitars and bass sound loud and heavy.

Personally, I think that this album is fairly alright, even though I feel that the overall execution could have been much better. Inner Axis did obviously put a lot of effort to make the album as best as they possibly could, though as I’ve said before, they are heavily relying on sticking to the same formula for the most part without ever finding a way to make at least one or two songs really blow your mind. Still though, if you feel like you should check out this one, I still think you should.

Rating: 7.4 out of 10