[Cover artwork by Timbul Cahyono]
In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I’ve always found the concept of the split to be flawed. It works best when there’s a shared theme or the band’s involved cover each other’s songs, but when it’s just one band on side A and a label-mate on side B for the purpose of… well, apparently just sort of holding hands together, the inevitability of a clear winner in some sort of imaginary scrum gets pulled front and center. Making matters even trickier, those victories often seem to be landslides. I don’t know why, I’m just here as a casual listener. The solution? Show up to the fight with your A-game ratcheted up to the Nth degree, or, you know, just stick to the always reliable EP.
Thankfully, in this case we don’t quite have an avalanche victory, but it’s pretty close. And once the dust begins to settle, I would definitely confirm that one side rambles from the veil as the ultimate conqueror: Mystic Storm.
Am I a shitty human for treating these sorts of releases like a Thunderdome tournament? Potentially! But at this point I can no longer avoid it, and the Mystic Storm side of the coin just so happens to hold a more intriguing story arc and delivers more impactful songs.
Were you there for Mystic Storm’s debut, 2021’s ear-shattering Из хаоса древних времён (From the Ancient Chaos)? It was a fairly big hit around these parts, thanks to the sheer force of its melodic thrashing glory. Here’s how I described it in one of our Missing Pieces write-ups from that year:
“…an aggressive and aggressively melodic style of thrash reminiscent of the Teutonic scene in the late 80s—Vendetta, Grinder and the raw fury of Protector—with enough galloping Sword & Sorcery trad metal that one could make just as strong a case for tagging them #fuckingepicheavymetal as they might #conanthrash.”
And adding to that windfall, there was this in regards to the band’s kick-ass vocalist:
“Anya conjures the ancient spirits of Debbie Gunn (Sentinel Beast), Tam Simpson (from the mighty Sacrilege) and especially Dawn Crosby (Detente—whose song “Vultures in the Sky” gets covered as a closer for the record), and that’s honestly something we could use a lot more of in thrash and thrash-infused metal in general.”
Fast forward one year later and we finally have our first evidence of where Mystic Storm is headed, and it is… rather different compared to what was being pushing five years ago. I’ve lost count how many times a thrash band has gone light(er), but working in Mystic Storm’s favor is the fact that they’ve always had a strong Sword & Sorcery tilt, so the shift from their debut LP to Wandering Time isn’t exactly shocking in a thrash-to-doom “Sacrilege from Within the Prophecy to Turn Back Trilobite” sort of way. It’s definitely in a nearby neighborhood, though.
The good news is that the music still packs plenty of power, but that energy is a little more magickal than it is outright RAGING in 2026. So, instead of Detente fueling the thrash, think of any number of 80s’ bands that brushed thrash but mostly just heavy metalled: Heretic, Metal Church, etc. And in lieu of Eternal Champion for the trad influence, now look toward any modern throwback band that pushes an atmospheric form of trad metal built on the foundation of Queensrÿche’s The Warning or Sacred Blade’s Of the Sun + Moon. So… FFO Vulture’s Vengeance, essentially.
The title track from the Mystic Storm side of the coin is a great example of most everything mentioned above. It’s the shortest of the three new cuts and takes about a minute and a half to finally kick into a steady gallop, but once it’s there you will eventually hear that sort of ‘nocturnal atmosphere’ tattooed up and down the melody provided by the guitar. Svetlana wails and has a bit more range compared to Anya, which matches the new face of the band that explores a more diverse assemblage of moods, and the rhythm occasionally flashes these deep, cavernous booms to help increase the overall weight. That dip into a much mellower face about 3:20 in is done much more elegantly compared to the way they managed similarly on the previous LP, and it gives the overall mood a bit of a King Diamond flare—the only thing missing is King’s penchant for layering a wide range of sinister laughter to augment the dark atmosphere. Sweet burnin’ lead in the closing 30 seconds, too.
By contrast, the Savage Master side of the split really does nothing new, so expect more of the same straightforward, hard rockin’ classic metal that’s basically tailor-made for fist-pumping exercises at the very front of the venue as your back takes a beating from the occasional moshing tubbster in a freshly stitched battle vest. As a studio band, Savage Master has always been consistent enough to draw interest, but they don’t exactly emphasize a ton of exploration, which is something that feels even more stressed here because the three songs just aren’t as catchy as works in the past. They’re short—just shy of 9 minutes total, compared to the Mystic Storm flip-side that serves up 18—and they mostly chase past with only a splashy lead to give them anything truly notable to grab hold of. It’s nothing I’d dismiss outright, and I’m sure Stacey Savage would bring them more life from the stage (they are, at their core, a live band), but compared to all that’s new with Mystic Storm and Wandering Time, The Power side of this split just can’t help but fall short.
Bottom line: the split has once again done what splits always manage to do, which is pit combatants in a battle of the bands to the death.
TWO BANDS ENTER, ONE BAND LEAVES. TWO BANDS ENTER, ONE BAND LEAVES. TWO BANDS ENTER, ONE BAND LEAVES!
And in this clash, Mystic Storm wins the day.
Left: Savage Master // Right: Mystic Storm
