Album Review: Enforcer - Zenith

The lines have been drawn and Enforcer, as the name suggests, are sticking rigidly to them. The Swedish metal maniacs are absolutely hellbent on avoiding reinvention, and although this fifth album joins the usual genre dots, the resulting picture is actually a pretty decent blast of old-school heavy metal tomfoolery. Anthemic opener Die For The Devil sets the pace, with racing solos, riffs angled and prepped to strike, and from frontman Olof Wikstrand a voice high and shattering enough to keep window glaziers in work for life.

The production is curiously at odds with it all, though, adding surprising amounts of gloss and sugar to otherwise full-blooded trad-metal belters like Thunder And Hell. It’s not all one-note, either, as the band show their willingness to play with pace on the gear-shifting The End Of A Universe, veer briefly into more classic rock territory on the soft-focus Regrets, and then circle all the way back again via epic closer Ode To Death. Zenith offers nothing that’s really new – but that, to Enforcer, is a bit of triumph.

Verdict: KKK