If it's big, boisterous, melodic metal anthems you're after, Elegant Weapons may be just what you need

Judas Priest man Richie Faulkner returns, backed by Rex Brown, Ronnie Romero and Scott Travis, on Elegant Weapons' debut Horns For A Halo

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Elegant Weapons: Horns For A Halo cover art
(Image: © Nuclear Blast)

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After having gone through emergency heart surgery in 2021, Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner could be forgiven for taking his foot off the creative accelerator. Instead he has formed a new band. And they rock like an absolute bastard. 

Having Priest’s Scott Travis on drums and Pantera’s Rex Brown on bass ensures that Elegant Weapons are tighter than a bee’s back passage, but it’s vocalist Ronnie Romero who comes closest to stealing the show from Faulkner’s blistering lead playing. 

These are big, boisterous melodic metal anthems, and the Chilean’s raucously soulful tones are perfect for them. Blind Leading The Blind and Do Or Die are weighty shards of gleaming old-school perfection; Downfall Rising and the title track dip into doomy grunge; Ghost Of You’s lascivious blues is wickedly melodramatic. 

A brutish cover of UFO’s Lights Out and the progged-out White Horse round out a killer debut album that zings with vitality.

Dom Lawson
Dom Lawson
Writer

Dom Lawson has been writing for Metal Hammer and Prog for over 14 years and is extremely fond of heavy metal, progressive rock, coffee and snooker. He also contributes to The Guardian, Classic Rock, Bravewords and Blabbermouth and has previously written for Kerrang! magazine in the mid-2000s.