About a year ago, I ventured into the metal world of Finnish sensations, Battle Beast, and was blown away by their finessing of cheese into something fun and listenable, and even nostalgic. You can read that review here, and as you can see, I gave this debut album quite a high score. Well, they only went up from that, despite splitting with their wicked lead vocalist Nitte Valo. I was skeptical about their new singer, Noora Louhimo; would she be as kick-ass as Nitte? The answer is a resounding YES! In fact, I have to say sheepishly that I think she’s even better. And their new self-titled CD is even better than their first one.

Things start off with a ricocheting blast of bombast with "Let it Roar." I can’t tell you how much I love this song and how great a start to a fantastic CD it is. This song makes me want to get a car just for the sole purpose of blasting the tune at full volume from the stereo. The song also sets up the sort of theme of the album, which is battles, both of the epic and personal. Here are a few lines:

I am a space traveler on a distant planet X,
Seeking directions back to Earth
My heartbeat’s everlasting,
I fear not the unknown
The thought of you drives me on
Just let it roar,
There is Hell inside of me that no one knows
Just let it roar, oh baby,
Put your fire in my soul

In addition to space travel, we get a few songs about an apparent apocalypse on Earth where computers and machines have taken over, leaving humankind to slum it in the sewers with rats and nuclear waste. Fun! And it really is. The first half of this release is pure catchy, all out blistering-paced fun. It’s fast, it’s furious...and it’s missing all the references to different types of metal, which I was actually grateful for because it would have been too much. In fact, this album is far less cheesy than Steel, and I was glad; Battle Beast shows off some of the band’s maturation.

In my estimation, the only really cheesy song on the album is the first single, "Black Ninja", which is about a female black ninja, and comes complete with sound effects of a sword whistling through the air. I guess you can’t have a battle-centric album without the appearance of something like a ninja. It’s a deceiving song at first if you haven’t heard the rest of the album. Noora starts off in a very lovely clean vocal, luring you into something soft and fuzzy, then her gravelly screamy voice (is there a more technical term for it?) kicks in and hammers you in the eardrum. I love it! But why it was chosen as the first single I don’t know. It’s one of the weaker songs on the album, and I would love to have seen "Let It Roar" be the first single because it’s so powerful.

And speaking of Battle Beast’s new leading lady, she acquits herself more than adequately on this album. All of my skepticism about her is gone, and she is a big part of the reason I’ve become addicted to this album - she’s amazing. He screamy voice isn’t like anyone else’s out there; it has a lot of range and good tone and it’s very pleasurable and entertaining for me to listen to.

Also notable on this album is that it’s much more keyboard-rich than its predecessor, and I liked that a lot. Keyboardist Janne Björkroth did a fabulous job, even getting some synth solos in and at one point there is even a keyboard-guitar duel that of course fits in with the theme.

Other notable songs on the album are "Out of Control", "Raven", "Neuromancer" (perhaps a homage to the William Gibson novel of the same name), and "Out on the Streets." I do think the first half of the album is stronger than the second, though; track 7, "Machine Revolution" is ok, and track 8 is an instrumental piece that I found to be a bit out of place. It has a strange folk metal vibe to it that didn’t quite work for me. "Kingdom" is OK, as is "Fight, Kill, Die." The CD doesn’t necessarily run out of steam - songs are still fast and catchy - they’re just a little less so than on the first half.

So Battle Beast is not suffering from any sophomore slump whatsoever, I can confidently say that. Already this year, I have come across some astoundingly great metal, enough so that I could probably confidently make a top 10 list for 2013 already. But when the year ends, I can pretty much guarantee you this album will be in my top five, if not my top three. Kudos to Battle Beast for pulling off something incredible once again!

9.5 / 10