Swedish metalheads Corroded qualify as scene veterans now, with new offering Plague being the sixth album in a career reaching back to their 2009 debut, Eleven Shades of Black.

They’ve made a bit of noise in their native land and, unsurprisingly, Germany, but remain largely unknown elsewhere. I don’t know whether that state of affairs will change overmuch with the arrival of Plague, but it’s certainly not the worst album you’ll hear this year and if you like dense, modern-sounding rock/metal with a broadly melodic edge then they might even get to count you as a new convert in the not too distant future…

The main problem for this reviewer is that at a dozen tracks in length and around fifty minutes in duration there’s just a little too much corrosion to digest, and the album starts to collapse a bit under it’s own weight towards the end as the band struggle to string out their schtick for the full time allotted. That said, if you’re still going by the time the penultimate track, Deadlock, rolls into earshot you’ll be rewarded with one of the best tracks on the album, a greasy, oily, grinding piece of bass-driven mayhem that really repays the listener if they’ve had the grit and determination to get that far…

Still, as we’re always being told, people don’t listen to albums from front to back any more so that might not be the problem I think it is, and, as noted, dotted around the rest of the album there are enough nuggets of quality to make at least one listen to this album a required exercise. Per Soläng, last seen around these parts powering last year’s mightily impressive album from doomsters The Sonic Overlords, is an excellent drummer, and his rock solid partnership with bassist Bjarne Elvsgård is a highlight here, whilst vocalist Fredrik Westin, armed with a pleasant if relatively undemonstrative voice, knows his way around a chorus well enough on tracks like album standout Crack The Sky to draw the listener in and get them involved.

Plague releases on November 17h.