Byzantine - Harbingers - Metal Epidemic

Byzantine – Harbingers
Release Date: 13th June 2025
Label: Metal Blade Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Groove Metal, Thrash, Progressive Metal, NWOAHM.
FFO: Shadows Fall, God Forbid, The Haunted, DevilDriver, Flotsam and Jetsam.
Review By: Mark Young

It’s not often that I form a negative opinion about music after listening to only one or two songs, but there are times where this happens, and it has landed with this. Harbingers is, in their words, their crown jewel of music released to date and on paper it should be something that I would normally lap up. And it starts brightly, Consequentia has a very strong feel to it, a combination of harmonic vocals and some great playing that is heartfelt, and I thought would set a scene from which the remainder would follow. They bring the riffs on A Place We Cannot Go, and it motors along nicely up until the vocals start, and that’s where I almost immediately switched off.

In writing like this, it feels that to be negative about someone’s art and energy expended feels off, but I cannot actually form the words as to why I felt the way I did. They just didn’t fit, and if you ask me why, I’m just going to say it was a gut reaction to it. The music here is fine, and I had no problem with the quality shown, it all came down to a particular style employed which seemed to change from song to song with no level of consistency. The annoying thing is that the singing on that opening track is quality, and I appreciate that maybe they were attempting something different, but it didn’t work for me.

What I didn’t want to do was get to a state where I ended up writing a hatchet job on this because that is something that is not true to me, so in that respect I ended the experience early. I know that is not the done thing, but rather would suggest that you pick this up yourself and make your own decision if this is the thing for you.