01. Devils Are Awake
02. By A Monster’s Hand
03. Acid Rain
04. Demonic Depression
05. In The Barn Of The Goat Giving Birth To Satan’s Spawn In A Dying World Of Doom
06. Time Will Heal
07. Better Be Fuelled Than Tamed
08. At The End Of The Sirens
09. Lonely Fields
10. Enlighten The Disorder (By A Monster’s Hand Part 2)
Do you cry when angels deserve to die?
Twenty years since the release of their debut album The Strength/The Sound/The Songs, Volbeat have become one of the brightest stars in the modern hard rock scene, thanks to a sound that has been refined through a series of albums that are as enjoyable as they are unique. Today, having arrested their slowing momentum with their Metal Storm award-winning Servant Of The Mind, the band now have to contend with following up this return-to-form album, something that history tells us is easier said than done. Well, if to not only stack the odds further against the band, the loss of what had been their overlooked X factor for the last ten years in Rob Caggiano adds an extra hurdle that these Danish rockers must overcome. No wonder they’re placing their hopes in angels.
So, do they?
In short, yes, but it’s not the victory lap you would have hoped for; instead, the band crawl to the finish line with the feeling that Servant Of The Mind was an outlier and their general slide was only temporarily suspended.
God Of Angels Trust is an OK record, though one you can’t help but feel Volbeat have done better before, lacking much of the magic touch the band seemed to have in abundance only a decade ago.
There are moments when Poulsen and co come close to producing tracks that should rank amongst some of the strongest cuts of their long career, but as if to typify God Of Angels Trust, they lack that spark to take them to that next level. “Demonic Depression” has a burst of energy that instantly sinks its claws into your skin, but the following chorus and hook don’t live up to that initial adrenaline rush. This feeling of almost being a solid track is the constant sense you will experience when listening to this album, be it the groove of “By A Monster’s Hand” or the drunken ‘arms around the person next to you in the crowd’-baiting “Time Will Heal”. There are ideas here that could be great, but there is just something missing that keeps from reaching the heights they tease at reaching.
This feeling gives way to disappointment when you realise that given the performances of the trio that now comprise Volbeat, had they had better material they could have knocked it out of the park with stronger material. Poulsen is still able to go from death metal tease to Johnny Cash at the drop of a hat, while the two Larsen’s form a tight rhythm section that may not provide much in the way of frills, but provides a solid platform for Poulsen.
It is when the band seemingly dump all their disparate elements into a blender and reduce it into a single track that Volbeat produce perhaps the track that typifies their overall sound in “Better Be Fuelled Than Tamed”; driving from a drunken Elvis croon by way of a Metallica-sounding breakdown and round again, it is a bright moment in an otherwise grey sound.
If not contender for album of the year, then at least it has a contender for the strangest song title of the year in “In The Barn Of The Goat Giving Birth To Satan’s Spawn In A Dying World Of Doom” (Nile must be raging that someone used this title before them).
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 5 |
| Originality: | 7 |
| Production: | 8 |
 | Written on 10.06.2025 by Just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I’m not listening. |