Metal Debate Album Review - Phantoma (Unleash The Archers)

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

Welcome metal fans to The Great Metal Debate, its Xander bringing you all a new album review. Today, we will be discussing the brand new album from Canadian power metallers Unleash The Archers and their 6th full-length studio album Phantoma. I made a prediction that the next record would be their worst. Turns out that nearly 4 years later in 2024, I was correct. This new Phantoma album ... Sucks! Let's talk about the guitar work. Andrew Kingsley and Grant Truesdell are usually guitar gods! To me, they have had some of the best riffs, melodies, harmonics and solos. But this album in particular makes it sound like they weren't even trying. Every song has a generic sounding main riff that is bland and falls flat. Its almost like they were just trying to make mediocre background music just so Brittany had something to sing to. The only song on this album that actually had a solo that stood out to me was in their first single "Green & Glass". Everything else is boring. Compare the best solo on Phantoma with literally any other solo from any other album and the former will blow it out of the water. Want an incredible guitar solo from Unleash The Archers? Check out the album title track on Apex. While were on the subject of "Green & Glass", lets address the controversy. Remember last year when Cattle Decapitation put out an AI generated music video for "Scourge of the Offspring" and nobody cared? But now that Unleash The Archers decides to get permission from an actual artist that they paid to draw the band members but then only use AI for movement animations, they're the ones who get shit on. I will defend Unleash The Archers for this because they're taking all the heat for using AI correctly. The internet is attacking the wrong people here. Another thing to poke fun at is the album cover. When Unleash The Archers shared a close up picture of the new album art before showing the whole picture, we got an image that looked promising. Two people next to a tree which gave off the Adam & Eve vibes. But when you zoom way out, it's small compared to the futuristic city behind it. The city scape depiction is atrocious. Yeah, yeah, don't judge a book by its cover but damn. This could've been so much better. Moving onto the singing. Brittany is an amazing singer who can really belt out those high notes. But it truly feels like she's not even trying on this album at all. One day before the album dropped, the band released another single for a song called "Blood Empress" and I only made it a minute and 30 seconds before I turned it off. Like seriously Brittany? You have so much natural vocal range but you felt like you need electronic enhancers? It sounded almost as if she was using auto-tune. I forced myself to listen to the rest of the album and nothing truly stood out about it. Maybe in 10 years from now after they release 2 more lame albums they'll finally want to do that thing that a lot of other bands try to do. They'll try to re-catch lightening in a bottle by "returning to their roots" and old fans like me will get excited for a song that sounds ... Almost as good as their early days as a band. Will this album later grow on me too? I don't know. But what I do know, is that it hurts my heart to give this such a scathing review. As it currently stands, I'm only going to rate this album a 4/10. Its not the worst thing out there in the world of metal. I'd still rather listen to this than the new Six Feet Under album that was released on the same day. Maybe with the continued support of the band, they could potentially redeem themselves within the next few years. As usual, their music is available on all streaming platforms and the majority of their merchandise can be purchased either through indiemerch.com or at their live shows. They will be on tour opening for Powerwolf this September but get your tickets now. The Atlanta show has already sold out.