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WITCH KING
The World Of Men Will Fall

Nocturnal Curse / Grime Stone (2025)
Rating: 7.5/10

J.R.R. Tolkien obsessed metal is the order of the day here from UK metalheads Witch King (not to be confused with the American act of the same name) who bring their debut full-length to the table alongside a gallon of mead and a hogs head.

I honestly thought that songs relating to The Lord Of The Rings had died a death, but how can one ignore titles like ‘Shriek Of The Nazgul’, ‘A Swarm Of Orcs’, ‘The Spies Of Saruman’ and ‘Last March Of The Ents’. The World Of Men Will Fall features six tracks in total, the other two being the title cut and ‘The Marvels Of Menegroth’. These tunes are the creation of wizard Tom Hughes, who provides all instruments, and Dagon, the vocalist.

You get your money’s worth here as all the songs run over five minutes and in spite of the album being 36 minutes in length there’s a lot of sword and sorcery to savour. If you like fiery power metal, sizzling traditional metal, flickers of doom and streaks of King Diamond and Mercyful Fate then you’ll dig this. In fact, I was quite surprised by the content when one considers it’s been released on labels whose speciality is black metal and dungeon synth.

The album opens with the seven-minute ‘Scream Of The Nazgul’, which is initially doomy but led by hard kicking drums and a King Diamond-styled scream. However, once in motion the song boasts the snap of old Metallica mixed with a dash of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and a bit of modern yet traditional Greek metal. It’s zippy and vigorous but somehow refreshing, and once involved you don’t feel as if you’re dealing with a seven-minute song at all. In fact, all the tracks, bar the steadier ‘The Marvels Of Menegroth’, rush with a vim and energy alongside an almost thrashy warmth.

Dagon, apart the occasional wail, has a James Hetfield depth to his tone alongside a rich power metal deepness, the latter coming to the fore with the hasty title song. But his most impressive performance comes via ‘A Swarm Of Orcs’. On this prime slab of well smoked beef Dagon ups his range, not quite King Diamond levels but the pitch is impressive no doubt.

Tracks such as ‘A Swarm Of Orcs’ really do whip up a storm. However, ‘The Spies Of Saruman’ provides a good mixture of menace and mayhem as melodies soar high above the smoke of the dark blacksmiths forge. Songs such as this are also littered with sweeping solos which nod to the more traditional aspects of heavy metal, but when you listen to ‘The Marvels Of Menegroth’ you also pick up the modern influence too because the track sounds very now, but it also exhibits a late 90s coolness too.

Even if you’re not a The Lord Of The Rings fan you’ll still appreciate this smouldering slice of British metal, but if you did spend your teenage years flicking obsessively through the yellowing pages of a Tolkien novel then that’s a bonus. So, head back to your shire hovel, get on Bandcamp and order a tape or CD before the Ringwraiths snap the rest up.

Neil Arnold

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