We have the first album review in, from MetalRules.com. Check it out here.
4/5 stars!
Black Halo are a traditional heavy metal band who self released their concept album ‘Utopia’ on February 20th, 2026. Part of their bio associates the following phrase with their music: ‘Darkness falls, and I can hear your screams.’ Doesn’t sound like much of a utopia to me. Anyway, whilst other hard rock bands sing about fast cars and ‘even faster women’ (come on, name me one song about a woman racing driver!) BH deals with dark and modern day subjects such as deep fakes, substance abuse, hatemongers and depression. In particular, the release describes two troubled people that have their dreams challenged by their own demons. Now that I think of it, Utopia sounds like an ironic name. Whoops, my bad now let’s move on.
First track ‘Utopia’ has a bit of a dreary intro, but not to worry as you soon get speedy and chuggy 80s metal riffs that are a lot of fun, think Grave Digger’s song ‘Ballad of a Hangman’. (Yes, I know that’s not an 80s song but it has an 80s sounding riff). I certainly wasn’t expecting to love the song, but you know what? It has a ton of soul! The singer sounds rather like Yngwie Malmsteen and if you don’t know what his singing voice sounds like, you can check out his ‘World on Fire’ album. He doesn’t have an outstanding voice (explaining why he hired other singers) but at the same time it is actually fairly decent. When the song slowed down, I thought that took away some of the song’s energy (which does make sense) but it soon speeds up again in another super fun way.
‘Reality Distortion Fields’ begins kinda like Megadeth’s ‘A Tout Le Monde’ with the slightly spooky clean guitar pattern, when the distorted guitars replace them, things are still kinda in the style of the Megadeth song! Sounds like plagiarism, but don’t worry, it’s not really. However, when the singer enters, the sound on the whole changes more than well enough to a more 80s classic metal sound, think Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Shot in the Dark.’ Personally I liked the prior speed metal song more, but RDF is still a solid rocker. ‘The Core’ starts off as another speedy number, this time think power metal songs like Stratovarius’s ‘Stratosphere’. Again, the sound soon changes, this time to more 80s metal. I’d have liked it if the change kept the same energy, but it’s still good music. Here the singing is more Vision Divine-styled, for example their song ‘Letter to My Child Never Born’.
‘The Synthetic’ has some rather strained singing in it at times that isn’t so fun to listen to (borderline painful, in fact), but most vocals are perfectly fine, the falsetto screams (or rather yells) are actually pretty good. The track’s not quite as energetic as the album opener but it’s still a lot of fun. As the guitar riffs aren’t limited to power chords, you get more colour than many other heavy metal acts. ‘Upon Deaf Ears’ starts like Steeler’s (a band once featuring Mr. Malmsteen) song ‘Serenade’ and turns into more rocking, mid-tempo 80s metal with some power metal in the vocals. Thankfully the track doesn’t have the annoying and girly high pitched singing of the apparent thieves and you don’t get Yngwie’s mindless shredding here, either.
‘Run Away’ is yet ANOTHER uptempo rocker (nothing wrong with that), this time with guitar melodies over the riffs, think Iron Maiden song ‘Speed of Light’ in places. Great stuff. Some of the guitar harmonies have a bit of a Thin Lizzy feel, as well. ‘Darkness Falls’ has some particularly colourful guitar harmonies and… it rocks, too! ‘In Death I Linger On’ begins with some slightly magical yet sorrowful sounding acoustic guitar playing, at times I’m reminded of Megadeth’s ‘In My Darkest Hour’. Nothing massively surprising, but where the hell did the female vocals come from? I had to check if this was the same band and it really does seem to be. It’s going to turn into another rocker, right? Nope. A bit weird.
‘A Kiss Beyond’ is an acoustic piece this time without singing. It’s not bad, but it’s more mood music than something truly memorable. ‘The Wake’ begins with even more acoustic guitars, but this time the song does turn into a rocker! Phew! Please say the first singer is back, the lady singer was a bit too weird for me, sorry. Oh great, he is! It’s not his best performance, again some notes are a bit strained but at least he’s not random. I’m not sure if the double kick beats match the heavy rocking but not THAT heavy rocking guitars, the axes don’t play thrash metal riffs like you’d expect with such drumming, but that’s a bit of a nitpick. The song does have an epic solo, though. Oh if only the song had an epic ending, when has a fade out ever been epic?
‘Sign Language’ begins with more acoustic playing (with a lot of fret noise!) that seems to get joined by another singer, I’ll have to check if there is indeed another vocalist… Nope, he just sounds different when in a lower register. He sounds good, though. Arguably better, even. Soon enough the song rocks up again, this time I think the blast beats are more suited to the backing. I’m glad you don’t get them throughout the whole song though, as they can get annoying in other bands. ‘Two Lights Beckon’ has some riffs in it that are like heavier versions of Thin Lizzy’s song ‘Thunder and Lightning’. It’s the heaviest song so far, some may say a little too heavy. Not because I fear heavy music, I’m just saying it’s a little out of place in the album. Not massively, though. Some riffs even remind me of ‘Demanufacture’ era Fear Factory! ‘Darkness Rises’ is a reasonable metal song with acoustic playing in the middle section, this time. The track has a bit of an epic feel, think Bruce Dickinson’s ‘Afterglow of Ragnarok’ at times. Final song ‘Double Vision’ also perhaps belongs on another album, it having a light(er) feel good, classic rock vibe from the mid 80s. It’s pretty good, though.
To conclude, oh if only the whole album had the spirit of the intro track. The rest of it is far from bad, though. Again, it was a little odd when the female vocalist made her first and last appearance, that came out of nowhere, the thrash metal was a little strange too, just not as much. The male singing is mostly good although there are some iffy moments and all the instrumentations are solid. It’s not the most original album in the world, again it’s very 80s but it’s very good 80s sounding music! You just have to make it through the first few seconds of the first track. I know it sounds like funeral music, just with distorted guitars added but much of the rest of the album is the complete opposite! I simply can’t see fans of the style not enjoying this project!