vast reaches unclaimed

I am not shy of being vocal on and around this site about not liking melodic death metal. This, however, is not entirely the truth, and is an oversimplification of my larger feelings on the topic. You see, I do love a lot of melodic death metal…just next to nothing that the genre is putting out in recent years. Give me a little Jester Race or Slaughter of the Soul though, and I am very much in my happy place. The classic sound of melodic death metal’s early incarnations have so much soul and life in them compared to the kinds of overly dour, riffless fare modern melodeath bands seem content to carbon copy from one another ad nauseam. Enter Minnesota’s Majesties and their debut release Vast Reaches Unclaimed, which pulls directly from the lineage of those halcyon days of the subgenre’s beginnings to remind one and all what melodic death metal should be.

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If anyone would‘ve hinted at Obsequiae and Inexorum combining forces in a new band, Majesties brand of 90s loving meloswedeath would not have been the first assumption. Yet, here we are on the eve of Vast Reaches Unclaimed and it’s an absolute beast of an album full of everything fans loved about that timeframe in melodic death metal. It’s almost as if these guys wrote the next chapter of the genre and the past twenty five years never happened. Buke recently sat down with Matthew Kirkwold (bass), Carl Skildum (guitars), and Tanner Anderson (guitars, vocals, drums) to get the lowdown on this new band and album, how it came to be, and so much more. We now bring you this conversation in its entirety so grab your beverage of choice, a seat, and enjoy.

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