“Remember – WE ARE DARK HEAVY METAL!!!”

So bark Spain’s Dark Embrace in the opening track of their third collection of all-new material, Personal Hell. As opening statements go you’d have to say it’s pretty much bang on, as over the course of the following half hour or so the band prove time and again that they are dark and very heavy metal.

The mid section of Personal Hell is probably the album’s high water mark, as guitarists Markos Villar and Mou Trashno go for broke over a florid keyboard line that will prod memories of old Cradle of Filth into action in your brain, but there is an awful lot to enjoy over the course of the rest of the album. Endless Months is pretty good, for a start; riding in on some groovy, psych-rock styled keys that fool you into thinking we’re in for a bit of Type-O fun and games, the song morphs into a lurching battle metal anthem in the blink of an eye, showing a musical agility that will be the envy of many a band I’m sure.

The keyboard embellishments, provided variously by Finns Jari Pailamo (Daimonic, King Company) and Antti Warman (King Company, Exlibris, Warmen), are perhaps the X-Factor here; they really add colour and shape to what might otherwise be pretty straight-up metal, and their use throughout adds real dimension to the Dark Embrace sound.

Metal Is Religion could be latter day Kreator, but without the obvious sense of disappointment one now feels when listening to Mille Petrozza and company, whilst closing track Bitter End MMXXII (a reworking of a track from the band’s 2006 debut) shows that the band know how to handle the epic as well as the more direct.

Dark Embrace have been around long enough now to attract the veteran label, and they use that experience to full effect on Personal Hell to create an album that is both satisfyingly heavy and eminently listenable. Very pleasing indeed!

Dark Heavy Metal releases on February 24th.