{"id":104335,"date":"2024-11-29T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T00:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104335"},"modified":"2024-12-05T13:11:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T13:11:00","slug":"album-review-demon-bitch-master-of-the-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-demon-bitch-master-of-the-games\/","title":{"rendered":"DEMON BITCH &#8211; Master Of The Games (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"title2\"><strong>DEMON BITCH<br \/>Master Of The Games<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" height=\"3\" \/><br \/>\n<span class=\"title3\"><span style=\"color: #c80000;\">Gates Of Hell (2024)<\/span><br \/><strong>Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"image floatedright\">\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/demonbitch_masterofthegames.jpg\" height=\"200\" width=\"200\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"left\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"right\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>Entering the world of Detroit, Michigan-based Demon Bitch is something akin to attempting to sidestep a monstrous spider web littered with entangled victims. What looks like chaos before you are in fact wonderfully constructed Gothic labyrinths, only instead of each strand consisting of a silken stickiness, here we have a network of neoclassical meandering.<\/p>\n<p>With <em>Master Of The Games<\/em>, Demon Bitch delves further in the crust of heavy metal nostalgia by way of fusing together a Thin Lizzy aesthetic with an occult fringe of King Diamond meets Apocrypha that is peppered with banshee wails and Fates Warning-esque tendrils.<\/p>\n<p>These guys know how to play, so this is more than just standard metal fodder. Duelling axe work, off kilter vocals and high levels of wizardry-cum-zaniness result in quite the experience as the likes of \u2018Not Of The Cruciform\u2019 and \u2018Tower Of Dreams\u2019 showcase bewildering talent littered with flashes of orchestral nuances and those peculiar yells of Logon Saton.<\/p>\n<p>As the album unravels one can only marvel at the strange majesty Demon Bitch constructs and it sounds so oddly natural. It\u2019s been eight years since the bands 2016 <em>Hellfriends<\/em> debut full-length, but they\u2019ve made up for lost time here where dollops of melody enrich those glinting metallic structures as nods towards Yngwie Malmsteen successfully marry to Fates Warning.<\/p>\n<p>A sense of the epic is always on the horizon as \u2018Into The Archway\u2019 and the title track unravel like vast journeys, great tapestries of explosive power metal circa the mesmerising yet underrated Titan Force. \u2018The Quickening\u2019 brings a thrashing pace, \u2018Sentinel At The Spire\u2019 bristles with melodrama and every space is filled with an elegant terrifying shred.<\/p>\n<p>Just like the aforementioned bands, Demon Bitch \u2013 whose name doesn\u2019t actually do them any justice \u2013 are firmly embedded in that mystical 80s sound, but the musicianship ensures that any stodge is absent, and so, like a magical sword rising from a dismal swamp, <em>Master Of The Games<\/em> is an absolute beacon of a record within the thick mists of retro metal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DEMON BITCHMaster Of The Games Gates Of Hell (2024)Rating: 8\/10 Entering the world of Detroit, Michigan-based Demon Bitch is something akin to attempting to sidestep a monstrous spider web littered with entangled victims. What looks like chaos before you are in fact wonderfully constructed Gothic labyrinths, only instead of each strand consisting of a silken [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5843],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-demon-bitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104337,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104335\/revisions\/104337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}