Review Summary: Haill the clown...
This is the third review I’ve written about Avatar.
My story with Hail the Apocalypse begins before I even knew who Avatar were — and long before I imagined that this Swedish band would become one of my favorites. The year was 2017. I was working at my computer while my 2-year-old daughter watched Kontrust (another kick ass band by the way) videos on YouTube for the millionth time. Suddenly, without warning, that riff kicked in. A riff that grabs you by the gut. I stopped what I was doing. Looked at the screen. “What IS THIS?!”
I wrote down the name of the band (or the name of the truck that had just flattened me) and that same night I devoured their entire discography on Spotify. Love at first listen. The truth is that the title track Hail the Apocalypse alone is worth the entire album (more on that later). And, thankfully, the rest of the record absolutely lives up to it.
If Black Waltz was Avatar’s rebirth, Hail the Apocalypse is their consolidation. Released in 2014, the album marks the moment when the band not only discovered their weird and theatrical identity, but learned how to use it as a central force — no longer as decoration. In interviews from the time, Johannes Eckerström said this was the record where they “finally learned how to turn theatricality into music,” and that they now understood “what they could build with their new identity.”
The production is once again excellent. Tobias Lindell returns to the helm, and everything sounds perfect. Even the bass is more audible!
- The riff that deserves a place in the pantheon -
The title track opens the album. And I know what I’m about to say is bold, but to hell with it: the Hail the Apocalypse riff deserves to sit on the same shelf as iconic riffs like Back in Black, Smoke on the Water or Enter Sandman. I'm serious. It is THAT good. It’s simple, heavy — very heavy. Words can't describe it.
And the best part: the album keeps up with that initial impact. Hail the Apocalypse isn’t a one-hit record — but even if it were, that riff alone would justify its existence.
- The machine properly tuned for the first time -
Here we hear a confident Avatar: sharp, precise, polished just enough. The melodeath influences fade; in their place emerges a sound driven by groove, weight, and rhythm. The band takes another remarkable step in their evolution.
Bloody Angel feels like it was born to be grand. I’m not even sure I could call it a power ballad — and honestly, who cares?
Vultures Fly is militaristic and intimidating.
Death of Sound and Tsar Bomba sound like a meeting between System of a Down and Slipknot — the chaotic SOAD-like musicality intertwined with the clean/guttural vocal interplay so characteristic of Slipknot.
Puppet Show is a wild, danceable staccato fever dream that feels like it walked straight out of Black Waltz into this new album, before turning into a straightforward heavy banger in its second half, and then almost becoming doom metal near the end. What a wonderfully insane track.
- The circus becomes an empire -
The theatricality that began on Black Waltz becomes a fully realized language here. Johannes Eckerström is completely fused to the clown persona, shifting between the grotesque, the dramatic, and the charismatic with unsettling ease. The production — clean and heavy at the same time — helps shape this controlled chaos.
- Conclusion -
Hail the Apocalypse is the album where Avatar stops being just an eccentric band and asserts itself as a truly unique identity within modern metal. A powerful, theatrical, precise, and irresistibly charismatic record. And for me, it’s the album that kicked open the door — literally — to an entire universe of sawdust, rust, and elegant chaos.
- Essential Tracks -
Hail the Apocalypse — a legendary riff; the album is worth it for this alone.
Bloody Angel — melancholy, heaviness, and drama.
Vultures Fly — theatrical, striking, and irresistible.
Puppet Show — the band’s bizarre humor at full throttle.
