One thing you can say about The Halo Effect, they certainly know their way around the classic “Gothenburg” sound. Which makes complete sense when you take into consideration that everyone was at one part a member of In Flames, and helped in one way or another forge what would become an entire movement in melodic death metal. Coming only 18 months since their debut, March of the Unheard takes the formula nailed 25 years earlier and successfully adds to its legacy. There’s nothing here you haven’t heard before, but also nothing that feels like a pale imitation or a cash grab. It’s a slick, anthemic set of tunes that give you precisely what you’re looking for in this milieu.

I’ll be the first to admit I wasn’t overly enamored by Days of the Lost, the group’s 2022 debut. It felt a little too produced and processed; while songs like “Feel What I Believe” and the title track were fine, it often felt like the production defanged the music, getting too compressed and losing much of its power. Maybe it’s the increased presence of Jesper Strömblad in the songwriting, but March of the Unheard really marries his Colony-era riffing with co-guitarist Niclas Engelin’s more exploratory contributions to In Flames’ mid-2010s era songs. Early single “Detonate” is a monster, alternating between those succulent guitar melodies and some killer chugging that brings the menace in a big way. Locking down the rhythm is Daniel Svensson on drums and Peter Iwers on bass, and the bridge section right before the solo is just one of the many reasons their bottom end is essential to The Halo Effect’s success.

As are the vocals of Mikael Stanne. The Dark Tranquillity vocalist already had a banner year in 2024 with Endtime Signals, the band’s best album in forever as well as the more gothic turn in his new project Cemetery Skyline. His signature growls are firmly in place throughout March of the Unheard, lyrically digging into a shared past of outcasts whose only connection to the world at large is through the rebellion of heavy music. The title track is a whipsmart anthem to forging your own path, and when he begins his clean singing to a song like “Between Directions” which its orchestral flourishes and heavy keyboard stabs builds to a grand crescendo that is anything but toothless.

If there is a unifying theme to March of the Unheard, it’s the ambition to go bigger in every aspect, and I think that’s what sets it apart from Days of the Lost. “Our Channel to the Darkness” is an anthem that would have been a highlight in the heyday of the NWOSDM explosion, and it’s just as powerful here. Similarly “What We Become” is a scorcher, hiding its ferociousness with a sweet clean guitar intro before Strömblad and Engelin rip into a terrific twisted riff. When The Halo Effect bring it down a notch on something like the short interlude “The Curse of Silence” they mean it: they can’t stay silent for very long, and the interlude practically bursts to return to the grand metal of the rest of the album.

By the time of the two closing tracks, the wicked (and personal fave at the moment) “The Burning Point” and the instrumental “Coda” which takes the melodic themes of March of the Unheard and encapsulates them in a sweeping orchestral treatment, I’m convinced. Convinced that The Halo Effect aren’t here to dwell in the past, but to bring it into the light and remind us why it was such a powerful moment in the first place.

— Chris

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March of the Unheard is available now on Nuclear Blast. For more information on The Halo Effect, check out their official website, Facebook and Instagram pages.