Tungsten is a family story.
Founded in 2016 under the name of Strokkur by Anders Johansson (drums, Manowar, ex-Hammerfall, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen) and his sons Karl (bass/vocals) and Niklas Johansson (guitar), the band hires Mike Andersson (vocals, Fullforce, ex-Cloudscape) and releases a first album. Today, the four musicians offer us Tundra, the third full-length born from their collaboration.
After modern-sounding keyboards, Lock and Load begins. Melting Power Metal and energetic tones, the song is effective and catchy, mainly using the vocalist’s clean voice, but also some screams. We continue with Volfram’s Song, a track as catchy as the previous one, but also heavy, which creates a contrast with those keyboards and those soft vocals, adding some Pagan influences, while Time is mainly dancing. We can easily imagine an entiere crowd jump with the rhythm of the swedes’ riffs, while headbanging will be mandatory for Divided Generations. The song is more massive, darker, but still as catchy. It is easy to let us be caught by those riffs surrounded by omnipresent drums. King of Shadows is the song charged to present the album, and is also impressive and melts those dark sounds with softer harmonics and a heady keyboard. Epic riffs are doing good, and the song also includes a Heavy rhythmic.
Tundra, the eponymous song, immediately relaunches the machine, and it’s once again some dancing tones, nearly Folk, that will make as much dance as move worldwide crowds thanks to more violent parts. Paranormal links again with modern tones and a well-worked drum play, while the rest of the rhythmic stays somehow traditional, and we come to Life and the Ocean, which is a soft and airy ballad. This acoustic guitar makes our mind travel, then saturation comes to weigh the composition down on the final part. I See Fury leaves for fastness and pure aggression before becoming softer, thanks to keyboards and harmonics, the This Is War’s sonorities strike, with again some Folk tones. The band also spreads other influences to give an energy outburst to their music before Here Comes the Fall, the last song. By far the longest one, the track allows itself to add epic, Symphonic but also heavier elements, and to play with each musician’s respective capacities before closing the album.
Melting several influences on a Heavy/Power basis with catchy melodies, Tungsten impose themselves as one of the nexts aspiring bands. Tundra isn’t their first effort, and it confirms both the band’s will but also their capacity to create interesting tracks.
80/100