Mezzrow – Embrace The Awakening
Release Date: 14th November 2025
Label: Roar
Order/Stream
Genre: Thrash Metal
FFO: Slayer, Testament, Xentrix, Havok, Death Angel, Overkill.
Review By: Mark Young
Mezzrow prove that there is more to Sweden than just death metal. Mezzrow emerged with a number of demo releases and their debut release, Then Came The Killing, which represents a gap in my listening experience. Mezzrow are one of those bands who seem to be known by some and are ripe for rediscovery by others. In their own words, they are in their second spring, but it doesn’t feel like this once you press play. It feels like a band who are just starting out, such is the vigour that is applied here.
Architects Of The Silent War is their opening statement, and suddenly we are transported back in time when metal had fewer branches, and you either liked ‘light’ or ‘heavy’ metal. It’s a combination of tight riffs and ear-worm melodic hooks. It’s strange, because it sounds like a new band in terms of the energy, but one that has come fully formed with all the tools in all the right places. Lead break over a galloping riff – check. Whammy bar abuse – check. It’s joyful in that there are no surprises here, just heads down assault and battery. Sleeping Cataclysm serves more of the good stuff up, mining traditional thrash builds but brought with a distinct Scandinavian eye. The leads are furious with drums that do exactly what you want them to do. It’s scandalous that they get so much from what is a simple arrangement but keeping it simple is what gives it the strength. Symphony Of Twisted Souls keeps it going, not by being overly complicated, but by knowing what works where. I keep returning to the maxim that if the first three songs engage, then the rest of the album will follow, and it does. What I like is that they bridge the gap between thrash and melodic death so that what you have is an underlying sense of melodic movement running through each song.
And some of the lead work just makes you smile, because it’s just so good. It takes me back to why I got into metal in the first place, aggressive, noisy and fast. Exhibit A is The Moment To Arise, an absolute belter of the first order that literally explodes from the off. I defy anyone who is even slightly a fan of thrash not to nod their head to this. It’s instant, in your face and fun. If anything, it’s a difficult review to get down because I’m trying to adequately describe a feeling I have, that has come from listening to it. If someone said, give me an example of euro thrash that isn’t Kreator, I’d say these. In Shadows Deep pulls back on the speed in that classic trick of taking a relative breather before launching towards the end. Even with its reduced tempo, it still does its job of being the crawling, muscular riff beast instead of the fleet-fingered fare they have delivered leading up to it. Its positioning is key too, dropping this after the blast of The Moment… means that its build carries a lot more weight to it.
Inside The Burning Twilight turns up and boots you square in the gut. I was hoping they would do this (yes, I know it sounds like a typical track order) screeching into high gear and scorching along at a fair lick. Does it have the same build as the others? Yes. Is this important? No. What it does, like the others, is just to take flight and lay waste. The job of each song is to be as destructive as is humanly possible and make you want to hear what is coming next. What they have done is write a thrash album that digs into what made thrash fun in the first place, and then upped the ante to suit their own view of doing things. Their ending piece, Dominion Of The Dead, just nails what a last song should be – go out on a high, give me solos, energise me, almost if it was a live show. I think what I love about this, is that it is unashamed in what it is. It isn’t trying to be something it isn’t, it doesn’t have that dense almost chewable guitar tone present elsewhere. It’s brittle, but razor sharp and diamond hard. I guess enjoyment of this, of Mezzrow will depend on how you like your metal. For me, it’s one of my favourite releases of the year because of what it isn’t. This is music to remind you why you love metal in the first place.
01. Architects Of The Silent War
02. Sleeping Cataclysm
03. Symphony Of Twisted Souls
04. Foreshadowing
05. The Moment To Arise
06. In Shadows Deep
07. Inside The Burning Twilight
08. Dominion Of The Dead
(4 / 5)
