50 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2017

Even though power metal as a whole can get a bit campy, I do have to acknowledge that – thanks to bands like Beast in Black, Iced Earth and Orden Ogan – the subgenre has done well this year; it would be a crime to leave one of these juggernauts out.

Apex was chosen as power metal’s representative here purely because of its ingeniously folkish tendencies making it stand head-and-shoulders above its peers. Songs like the monstrous single “Cleanse the Bloodlines” demonstrate this perfectly, drawing on numerous Viking metal conventions despite Unleash the Archers’ Canadian roots.

And then, of course, we have the mystical songstress Brittney Slayes (damn right she does), whose operatic pipes are continually enchanting throughout the album’s running time, while also even displaying hints of thrash metal-like aggression on “The Matriarch” and the acoustic opus of a title track.

As far as the massive power metal sphere in 2017 goes, it would be hard to argue that Apex isn’t the best album of the bunch, avoiding any and all clichés to deliver a truly mythic, empowering journey.