Times of Pride and Peril

Editors’ Notes These Pasadena, California speed-metal throwbacks are having a blast—even the war songs, leading with “Crystal King” and “Waste Them All Away,” make bloody battles sound like raging keggers. The latter could almost pass for early-’80s Van Halen, while the majestically Thin Lizzy-esque “Pro Patria Mori” also leans more toward chunky hard rock. Guitar solos jump through hoops of fire in the indelibly chorused “Descent into the Maelstrom,” and nine-minute closer “Black Lotus” turns pastoral before climaxing with an amusingly incongruous minute of death metal.