Album Review: This Ending – Needles of Rust (Black Lion Records)

Stockholm melodeath stalwarts This Ending returns with their anticipated album, Needles of Rust, due out June 11th, 2021 via Black Lion Records on CD, cassette, and digital formats; vinyl will be issued later this year.

Melodeath from the home of melodeath, Sweden is a country we all associate with the top shelf of melodic death metal. While Gothenburg often gets the attention, Stockholm is producing some quality stuff too. Case in point… This Ending. Now into their 16th year as a band, the aggressive metal mongers have a new offering to entrance the rest of the world.

Which it will as This Ending are on incredible form here. From beginning to end; Needles of Rust is a maelstrom of meaty metal and grand melodeath soundscapes. As epic as it is heavy, if you’re not head-banging to the elaborate riff-work, it’s the punishing drum beats or scathing vocal performance that does the job.

A job that is expertly done as the 37-odd minutes of this album flies by in a joyous blur of chunky noise. The blasé feeling you might get inside when initially approaching yet another melodeath release is well and truly beaten out before the album is even halfway done.

Seriously, this is one of, if the not the best melodeath release heard so far this year. This Ending deliver an incredibly focused, tight and refined listen. Horribly addictive, insanely memorable and gob-smacking in its ability to get the neck muscles aching in desire. Don’t sit this one out and if you’re a big fan of melodeath it is necessary listening.

This Ending – Needles of Rust Full Track Listing:

1. My Open Wound
2. Annihilate
3. Embraced By the Night
4. Eclipse of the Dead
5. A New Plight
6. Needles of Rust
7. Devastate
8. Hell to Hell

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