Normally, when I take a musical trip to Norway, it’s for bands that can strip paint off walls from 1,000 paces. The kind of outfits who play so fast they threaten to punch a hole through the ozone layer. The ones who are so drenched in corpse paint you’d need industrial-strength solvents to discover what their actual faces look like. But not today. Today, Norway has handed me something entirely different — and gloriously so.
Because today, the country that gave us some of the filthiest, frostbitten extremity in history has delivered Down in Flames, the new Heavy Rock/Metal album from Glasgow Kiss, and Satan help me… it’s a fucking belter.
This is an unusual step for me. If you read this site regularly (and if not, shame on you), you’ll know I cover a wide range of genres under the Metal umbrella, but the bulk of what appears here in the reviews section tends to live in the Black/Death/harsh-vocal-wing-of-hell section. So for something outside that sphere to occupy space among these diabolical walls, it’s got to justify its place — and Down in Flames doesn’t just justify it, it fucking owns it.
Let’s get this out of the way right now: this is a good record. A really fucking good record.
Not “good for a genre I don’t normally review.”
Not “good for a rock band.”
Just good. Full stop.
Glasgow Kiss operate with the kind of tightness most bands only dream of. Every riff lands. Every drum hit feels like it was fired from a precision-engineered cannon. Every groove locks in like the gears of an old, well-maintained engine built for speed and attitude. This isn’t a band who overindulge themselves or drift off into guitar-wankery acreage; this is a unit who understand the difference between showing off and showing up.
There’s no needless pyrotechnics here. No extended solos desperate to prove something. No meandering for the sake of some faux “artistic expression.” Instead you get rock-solid songwriting, the kind that comes from musicians who know exactly what the spine of a great track looks like — and how to build on it without smothering it.
Hell, I even like the ballad, One Last Time.
Let that sink in.
When was the last time you saw me admit that without breaking into hives?
But as good as the band are — and trust me, they’re fucking dialed in — there’s one element that elevates Down in Flames from “excellent Heavy Rock/Metal album” to “something genuinely special,” and that is vocalist Charlotte Marlen Midtun.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m a sucker for a woman with a killer vocal range. Blame it on the Janis Joplin obsession. Blame it on my unhealthy fixation with Billie Holiday. But when someone opens their mouth and unleashes the kind of power that makes the hair on your arms stand up, I’m done for. And Charlotte absolutely has that power.
She moves between tones and textures with such fluidity it barely seems fair. One moment she hits you with that old-school Rock snarl — the kind that could knock a pint glass clean off the bar — and the next she channels pure Heavy Metal fury. There’s even a section in my personal favourite track, Those Wasted Years, where she goes so absolutely feral, so wild-eyed and explosive, that I genuinely want her to start a Black/Death Metal side project, because I swear to Lucifer she would cause devastation.
What makes this album so refreshing is that nothing feels forced. The band don’t sound like they’re straining to write a “hit.” They sound like people who enjoy the hell out of playing heavy, muscular, melodic music — music you can crank in the car, blast in your headphones, throw on during a house party, or use to soundtrack a pub fight. It’s versatile, confident, and above all, alive.
And that’s what stands out most about Down in Flames.
It’s alive.
It breathes.
It moves.
It kicks you in the bollocks and dares you to get up again.
This isn’t nostalgia. This isn’t an homage to Rock’s glory days. This is a band taking everything good about the genre — the swagger, the punch, the hooks, the grit — and using it to build something that stands firmly on its own.
Glasgow Kiss didn’t just surprise me. They impressed the absolute shit out of me.
Down in Flames isn’t just worth your time — it’s a reminder that Heavy Rock/Metal, when executed with passion instead of pretense, can still hit as hard as anything skulking in the extreme metal crypts I normally haunt.
Down in Flames by Glasgow Kiss is available December 12th via Eclipse Records.
CHOICE CUT: Those Wasted Years
BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: A thunderous, hook-laden triumph. Down in Flames proves Glasgow Kiss can out-muscle, out-sing, and out-write most of the heavy rock scene without breaking a sweat. Tight, powerful, and fronted by a vocalist who could level mountains.
