Review by Vladimir on October 27, 2024.

As we turn our eyes to Lower Saxony, we are taking a look at a German heavy metal band Beast, with their independent debut full-length album Ancient Powers Rising with the release date of November 15th, 2024. At first glance, it looks quite promising, but is it truly a wonderful sight to behold? Stay tuned to find out… 

Ancient Powers Rising starts out as one hell of a heavy banger with the opening track 'Ancient Powers Rising', one seriously fast, epic, and melodic kickstart to this great adventure that promises plenty of thrill rides and excitement to be had with its punchy heavy metal energy. Although things turn out so great from the very get-go, the fun doesn’t stop there, because it just keeps building up the further it progresses, whereas Beast’s performance starts to showcase more firepower and pounding steel. The first couple of tracks provide the usual ass-kicking action that one would expect, while at times taking a borderline speed/power metal approach, but it’s only the taste of things to come because the band only manages to raise the bar even higher with 'Ride The Tempest' and 'Shadows From The Arcane Tower' on the second half of the album, plus the surprisingly catchy rocky mid-tempo banger 'Swords Are Burning' that adds a nice cherry on the top. What Beast delivers on this album is a nice mixture of epic and melodic-inspired heavy and power metal bands, ranging from 80’s Manowar to Blind Guardian, Iron Maiden, Pretty Maids, Warlock, and Virgin Steele, with a touch of sword and sorcery-inspired background that gives it an additional flavor of excellence. With an output such as that, you can only imagine how smooth the overall flow of the album is, especially with the kind of uplifting vibe that choruses have, and you know for damn sure that you are in for a real treat. When it comes to the real treat of this album, the crème de la crème, the grand climax of Ancient Powers Rising, that would most likely be the final 10-minute epic track 'Mystery Of The Lonesome Rider', which is like one final strike of this great “Beast of an album” (pun intended), and it definitely does not fail to deliver, because it really goes out all the way to call down the godlike thunder to bring down the mountain. 

Beast’s approach to songwriting is quite simplistic and straightforward in terms of standard heavy metal, but it was well-executed in the end with all the kickass riffing and beautiful melodies that give such charm to the songs, alongside all the fantastic choruses throughout the entire album. When it comes to the songs in general, they really have a certain edge to them, but even aside from the stylistic consistency that carries over from beginning to end, the album manages to maintain the core strengths that keep it interesting and exciting all the way through. The melodic guitar approach is perhaps one of the biggest highlights of this album because it will make you get so immersed in the beauty of the songs and you will probably never feel like there’s enough of it. Although one could say that Ancient Powers Rising isn’t really a very innovative or eye-catching album, it still is a very solid piece of art made for the diehard enjoyers of melodic heavy metal with epic themes. If you are really looking for something new and different, you are definitely not in the right place, but if you are someone like me who enjoys a pretty good traditional heavy metal album, you will most certainly tell that this is an epic collection of well-written material that holds up without ever losing its magic. Other great notable things worth mentioning are the fantastic cover art designed by the Greek artist Giannis Nakos and the excellent sound production by Matthias Lohmöller, both of whom did an excellent job of giving this album a proper treatment and they did its justice. 

Overall, I personally found Ancient Powers Rising as an incredibly fun and exciting journey that can take you to such wonderful places with all the great songs that it has to offer. If you really love fast and catchy heavy metal with epic themes, you needn’t look any further than this, because Beast did a great job with their debut full-length, which only promises even better things for the future. 

Rating: 8.5 out of 10