New Zealand's Alien Weaponry are one of the most exciting metal bands to have emerged in the last decade. Brothers Lewis and Henry de Jong started playing together before they had even hit their teens, and their prodigious talents and chemistry, coupled with a desire to splice crushing groove metal with influences from indigenous Māori culture is certainly a unique USP.
After two impressive albums in 2018 debut Tū and its 2021 follow-up, Tangaroa, now is surely the time for the band to transition from hotly tipped youngsters to leading lights. They couldn’t have given themselves a better chance of getting there than with Te Rā. Comparisons with Sepultura have followed Alien Weaponry from the start of their career, and this very much feels like a similar leap from the Brazilians’ Arise to their classic Chaos A.D. album.
Everything here feels larger, bolder, catchier and more instantaneous. Take opener Crown, which kicks off with a simple yet undeniable thrashing riff, before adding a soaring melody and a devastating beatdown mid-section. It’s a refinement, rather than a reinvention, of their sound, and it works wonderfully.
The other obvious influence is Gojira, another band who famously feature a pair of siblings on guitar and drums, as Alien Weaponry do with Lewis and Henry De Jong. The chiming, aching melody of Myself To Blame could have been taken from Gojira’s Magma era.
There’s a similarly fabulous well of killer riffs all over Te Rā, from the tech rhythms of Hanging By A Thread through to a majestic guest appearance from Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe on the brutal Taniwha, to the closing two-minute Te Kore, which brilliantly celebrates Māori culture.
A production job from Avenged Sevenfold, Trivium and Korn producer Josh Wilbur makes everything crush, pound and ascend in all the right places. Welcome to the A-League, Alien Weaponry.
Te Rā is out now via Napalm.
