Despite authoring some of the more tuneful better days underground heavy metal tradition in years Stockholm, Sweden-based duo CENTURY recognize the damnation of the present on this sophomore full-length album, choosing to live in it rather than struggle with the past, or, pretend a vibrant tomorrow exists. Tales of high fantasy, of the dead arisen and nightside possession, raise Hell amidst struggles for freedom as they settle in the deeper pockets of ‘Sign of the Storm‘. As a follow-up the album captures the band “maturing” in their presentation and authorship without losing the hand-built, from-the-hip energy that’d sold the last.

Century formed circa 2020 between Tøronto bandmates drummer/bassist Leo Ekström Sollenmo (Temisto, Lethal Steel) and guitarist/vocalist Staffan Tengnér (Black Spell, Henrik Palm) having readied and released their first demo tape (‘Demo MMXX‘, 2020) in late December of that year. Their sound was decidedly inspired by the sphere of ’77-’81 pre-mainstream NWOBHM and with mention given to lesser known classic early 80’s Swedish heavy metal units Gotham City among others, yet bearing little of the blues rock inherent to those early movements. Beyond that point the band released a couple of singles in the year or two leading up to their debut LP (‘The Conquest of Time‘, 2023) an album which I was an instant fan of, placing it at #10 on my Top 75 Albums of 2023. Their blend of heavy rock inspired riffs and a lightest possible tinge of Zeppelin (see: “Sign of the Storm”) in their otherwise anthemic work felt authentic to their intended period and managed to be wholly memorable per high standards for era-specific songcraft. At the time I’d commented: “Their approach isn’t so resolute in revisionism, it doesn’t quite feel ready to be lumped in with any faux new wave nor does their songwriting feel like plain 80’s emulation…“. That said, the only expectation heading into album number two is their knack for galloping heavy metal anthems would be replicated.

We’d known what to expect from Century‘s debut thanks to their lead up to it via a number of singles and this is likewise the case in introduction of ‘Sign of the Storm‘ as the ‘Sacrifice/Avenging Force‘ single prompted album opener (“Sacrifice”) and introduced us to what we should consider positive iteration, a general recreation of the successes of their debut. While I’d felt ‘The Conquest of Time‘ had more speed metal in its riffs than folks’d given it credit though this was balanced by hard rock grooves and the general normalcy of speedier hits in post-Enforcer breakout NWOTHM standards. The focus of this record seems to be moving the needle back toward an ’81-’84 feeling of pure heavy metal that again celebrates some of the cadence of heavy rock but makes a bit more sense when compared to say, ‘Stronger than Evil‘-era Heavy Load as the anthemic stride of the band is their go-to here once again.

Century‘ve already proven they can do more than variations on “See How it Flyes” via their debut so the task as I see it laid out here with ‘Sign of the Storm‘ is finding a deeper-set personae to lead with and a few different song types to break up the drone of ~3-4 minute jogging paced heavy metal kicks. They’ve done so here more often by way of expressive vocals wherein Tengnér‘s timbre now reaches for highs not unlike a younger Brian Ross (see: “Necromancer”, “Sacrifice”) for effect. This is just one facet of an increasingly melodic temperament from the vocalist, losing some of the haunted and stark feeling of the debut for the sake of a layered and at times harmonized ‘epic’ listlessness which suits the lesser known underground era of the NWOBHM and its more disaffected acts just as well as it does the awkward revisionism of the specious NWOTHM (whatever that actually is at this point.)

The most practical up-front criticism one could lodge against ‘Sign of the Storm‘ is also common fundamental misunderstanding of the heavy metal niche as it’d developed, the idea that a ten song heavy rock structured metal record can be too much of a good thing or too focused on its lane. It might appear that Century do one thing and do it well but there’ll have to be some personal enlightenment earned by the listener here, simply spending time with the darker, severe tone of this album ’til its conversation carries through. Sure, easier said than done when many of the songs express in similar ways and the default song type is an early 80’s heavy metal anthem but there was some thrill in that narrow band of frequency on ‘The Conquest of Time‘ and here it is even more intense in its echoic hallway of aspiration. There are in fact brilliant points of distinction and different song types in their songbook be it the late 70’s/early 80’s Scorpions-esque wiles of “Fly Away”, the punchier resound of “No Time for Tomorrow” after it, or the early on pace-setter “Children of the Past”.

Appreciating niche music is most often a matter of finding that one voice, riff, or general overall texture and ‘tude which speaks to an uncertain ideal enough to shape it into reality and in that sense ‘Sign of the Storm‘ doesn’t stray all that far from the brilliant place they’d started, only reinforcing all that was great about Century past and present. That said the full listen feels dense with ideas, a band inspired to crank out as many songs as they can, and in this sense even ~38 minutes feels like a trek compare to the “just one more hit…” feeling that’d lingered beyond the previous record. Here the strange sensation to examine is satiation, satisfaction with the set of songs presented to the point of fullness and without any thoughts of futurity or outright references to pine over. With a strengthened voice and a slight loss of their rocking twang overall I’d found this second LP from the band revealed itself in almost identical fashion as the previous, slow and steadily worming inside my brains ’til it’d felt like an old impassioned classic that’d been on my shelves for years. A very high recommendation.

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