Stockholm trio Grand Magus were hit harder than most by the pandemic, and it’s only now that they’ve managed to regroup and rekindle their spirits to follow up 2019’s Wolf God.
It’s heartening to see them staying true to their lupine obsession on the new album, and this time there’s a more pronounced thematic thread running through the set – okay, a concept, if you will – based on the Germanic Old English epic poem Beowulf.
Main man JB Christoffersson is in chest-beating form, his booming vocal delivery and the rhythm section’s juggernaut metal propelling tracks such as Winter Storm, while Wheel Of Pain and Grendel lurch monstrously like the mythical beast the latter is named after.
But however fully you choose to buy into their tales of fantasy battles, heroes and villains, they never lose focus on the riff hooks that draw us in, or the wind-in-the-hair heavy metal thrust that keeps pulses racing.
