A strange one, this. We here at Sentinel Daily weren’t particularly enamoured of Italian outfit Apostolica‘s first album, Haeretica Ecclesia, which emerged a couple of years back. That album, with it’s Imperial Triumphant/Behemoth aesthetics, Powerwolf/Sabaton sonics and the appropriation of Ghost/Mekong Delta‘s ‘nameless musos’ mystique, just seemed to fail – in our eyes at least – in attaining any of it’s stated war aims… But it appears that we were in the wrong, fans enjoyed the album and label Scarlet Records were sufficiently impressed by the returns they got from that debut to give the band another bite at the cherry in 2023. Animae Haeretica is the result of that bite.

In most respects, Apostolica V.2 is an improvement on the original; Whilst the band retains it’s straight-to-the-point ‘don’t bore us, get to the chorus’ modus operandi, songs like Veritas and album standout Fire, with it’s strong Manowar vibe and rampaging riffs, sound far more substantial than anything on the debut album. Andrea Falaschi, who has worked with Italian legends Death-SS in the past and is credited with writing all bar one of the songs here, should certainly be given credit for the ambitious expansion of the band’s sound, whilst lead guitarist Isaia (once of death/thrash outfit Krieg) puts in a fantastic performance throughout the album with some memorable lead work peppering the songs.

The only song that Falaschi didn’t write is the strangest thing here, a cover of Tomorrow Belongs To Me from the musical Cabaret; A song long-beloved of Neo Nazis everywhere – Skrewdriver famously had a longstanding relationship with it – it just doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the album at all. Even if seen as a piece of Laibachian political provocation, the track just sticks out like a sore thumb in the commercially-minded power metal surroundings it finds itself in. Like I said – strange – and an open invitation for mass opprobrium to boot. Although of course any publicity is good publicity…

Still, one absolute clunker in a batch of eleven tracks isn’t too bad, and Apostolica seem to be ready to bust out of the niche they’ve carved for themselves moving forward. They clearly have the talent to do so, so album number three might well be a bit of a monster…

Animae Haeretica releases on September 22nd.