Fifth Angel - When Angels Kill

Angry Metal Guy 70

Seeing a Fifth Angel promo surface in 2023 comes as quite a nostalgic surprise for Elder Steel. As a metal-loving teen, I stumbled upon their 86 debut while on a treasure hunt at the legendary Slipped Disc Records in Valley Stream, New York. I knew nothing of them but bought it based on the cool cover and badass song titles. Turns out it was a wise choice as it’s a smoke show of classic metal anthems in the vein of Crimson Glory and Warrior. Their 89 follow-up was also fun but moved in an unsettlingly Dokken-adjacent hair/glam direction. And just like that, they closed up shop. Somehow I missed that they reformed and dropped a new album in 2018, but here we are in 2023 and they’ve crafted a conceptual DOUBLE goddamn ALBUM! So what does Fifth Angel sound like some 34 years since I heard them last?

Well, they sound nothing like Fifth Angel. With three original members, a brand new vocalist, and a guitarist on loan from Flotsam & Jetsam, it’s not surprising that they have a different sound. They’re a lot heavier now than they were in the 80s, sounding like Mystic Prophecy and Primal Fear. I’m not complaining, mind you, and I’ll say upfront When Angels Kill is a very impressive release for a band so olde and with such a thin release history. With 13 songs running nearly 70 minutes,¹ there’s a whole lot that could wrong. Happily, the vast majority of the album goes pretty damn right and delivers a wide-ranging collection of traditional metal nuggets with grit and balls. The title track is 120% crunch-n-punch metal with enough impact force to leave bruises. New singer Steven Carlson has a strong similarity to Mystic Prophecy’s R.D. Liapakis and the writing approach is often very close to what those Kraut rockers do, and cuts like “On Wings of Steel,” “Run to the Black,” and “Seven Angels” are feisty metal bulldozers with big hooks. “We Are Immortal” is like Firepower era Judas Priest, and “Blinded and Bleeding” sounds like Rob Halford’s halcyon Fight period. There’s also a whiff of Firewind in guitar-forward numbers with an epic flair like “Resist the Tyrant.”

There’s a shockingly good run from the opener through the next 9 tracks with very little to complain about as quality and hook levels are kept high. Things don’t start to wobble until twelfth cut “Ashes to Ashes,” which is the inevitable overwrought power ballad. It’s solid, but it’s almost 7 minutes long and followed by the equally laid-back and nearly as long “The End of Everything,” which is the album’s least-best moment. Their combined 13-plus minutes grind the album’s momentum to a halt after so much rabble-rousing fun. Things do go out with a big bang on the very Primal Fear-esque fist-pumping closer “Light in the Sky” however, leaving a warm feeling in the listener’s sword hand. So, what are the issues with this mega-ambitious double album? For one, the voiceovers between every song are exceedingly cheesy. And since they’re part of the songs themselves, you can’t escape them if you add a track to a playlist.² The last few songs also have bloat issues, with four tracks in a row running over 6 minutes. Another minor quibble is how the band works their albums into the narrative arc of this grand tale of oppression, media deception, and world destruction.³ It’s painfully goofy, but hey, why not make themselves the star of their metal opera?

This modern lineup of Fifth Angel is certainly impressive. Original axe Ed Archer gets excellent support from Flotsam & Jetsam’s Steve Conley and together they run a clinic on hard-charging, beefy riffs. There are loads of slick fretboard gymnastics splattered across the album’s prodigious runtime with some of their shredding reminding me of Gus G’s hyperactive antics. Steven Carlson’s gravelly, hard rock-influenced vocals are the right fit for the material, giving these tales of doom, deceit, and destruction the proper weight. Besides channeling R.D. Liapakis, he references Rob Halford, so he’s doing the Lord’s work here. The big star is the writing, however. Throwing a 13-song monstrosity at the wall and nailing almost every track is a rare accomplishment indeed. I can’t honestly call anything here filler, though “The End of Everything” doesn’t quite hit the same highs as the rest. That’s a winning scorecard on something this immense and enterprising.

While their debut will always be their magnum opus in my mind, When Angels Kill is a definitive statement on Fifth Angel’s place in the modern metalverse. It’s big, bold, loud, and long, and by Crom, it almost completely works! I didn’t have a double album’s worth of badass traditional metal from Fifth Angel on my 2023 bingo card, but it came just the same. Brace for extended ass kickery and then track down that debut. Hail Angel.



Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 275 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast
Website: facebook.com/fifthangelofficial
Releases Worldwide: June 16th, 2023

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