{"id":104845,"date":"2025-05-02T00:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T23:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104845"},"modified":"2025-05-07T10:37:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T09:37:03","slug":"album-review-witch-king-the-world-of-men-will-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-witch-king-the-world-of-men-will-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"WITCH KING – The World Of Men Will Fall (2025) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITCH KING
The World Of Men Will Fall<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nNocturnal Curse \/ Grime Stone (2025)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

I honestly thought that songs relating to The Lord Of The Rings<\/em> had died a death, but how can one ignore titles like \u2018Shriek Of The Nazgul\u2019, \u2018A Swarm Of Orcs\u2019, \u2018The Spies Of Saruman\u2019 and \u2018Last March Of The Ents\u2019. The World Of Men Will Fall<\/em> features six tracks in total, the other two being the title cut and \u2018The Marvels Of Menegroth\u2019. These tunes are the creation of wizard Tom Hughes, who provides all instruments, and Dagon, the vocalist.<\/p>\n

You get your money\u2019s worth here as all the songs run over five minutes and in spite of the album being 36 minutes in length there\u2019s 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\u2019ll dig this. In fact, I was quite surprised by the content when one considers it\u2019s been released on labels whose speciality is black metal and dungeon synth.<\/p>\n

The album opens with the seven-minute \u2018Scream Of The Nazgul\u2019, 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\u2019s zippy and vigorous but somehow refreshing, and once involved you don’t feel as if you\u2019re dealing with a seven-minute song at all. In fact, all the tracks, bar the steadier \u2018The Marvels Of Menegroth\u2019, rush with a vim and energy alongside an almost thrashy warmth.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018A Swarm Of Orcs\u2019. On this prime slab of well smoked beef Dagon ups his range, not quite King Diamond levels but the pitch is impressive no doubt.<\/p>\n

Tracks such as \u2018A Swarm Of Orcs\u2019 really do whip up a storm. However, \u2018The Spies Of Saruman\u2019 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 \u2018The Marvels Of Menegroth\u2019 you also pick up the modern influence too because the track sounds very now, but it also exhibits a late 90s coolness too.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re not a The Lord Of The Rings<\/em> fan you\u2019ll 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITCH KINGThe 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5909],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-witch-king-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104845","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=104845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104846,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104845\/revisions\/104846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}