I like my metal cooked medium rare, with extra roasted veggies on the side, just to keep my appetite waiting for more delicious spices heading my way. That’s especially true when it comes to newer bands carrying on the legacy of the Sabs, Candlemass, Cathedral, Electric Wizard, and Mastodon.
One of those bands is the Swedish melodic doom metal group 10,000 Years, who have been around since 2020. The band consists of the Risberg brothers: Alex on bass and vocals, and his brother Alvin on drums, who took over the drum duties from Espen Karlsen after he left the band in 2023, and Erik Palm on guitar. They released their self-titled debut EP in 2020, followed by three studio albums, from 2021’s II to 2024’s All Quiet on the Frontier. Now, they return with their latest release, Esox Lucifer.
High-powered rumbles, dooming textures reminiscent of Iommi’s riffs, and a thrash-like quality at times make for a great way to start this roller-coaster ride with exhilarating power. Released through Ripple Music, Esox Lucifer almost makes you want to open up that milk crate of vinyl records and revisit the metal you grew up with during the ‘80s, when the underground scene was gritty, dirty, heavy, and in your face, giving the so-called hair metal scene the big, giant middle finger it properly deserves.
I had no idea what to expect from this band when I hit the play button on my 32GB iPod touch. Eight tracks later, I felt like I had just been taken somewhere I’d never heard before.
The album opens with ‘Beasts of the Northern Wild’. When you hear a title like that, you immediately think of the stories of Taarna from the Heavy Metal movie or Richard Corben’s Den. The galloping drums and bass set up the cosmic voyage, while the space-rock textures and bluesy vibrations charge up the engines and prepare for a jump to sub-light speed.
It’s almost like Hawkwind’s Space Ritual-era sound teaming up with Manuel Göttsching, as if he were continuing where he left off with Ash Ra Tempel, before the full-energy riffs go into light speed with ‘Pursuit Special.’ You almost want to head-bang to this mo-fo, showing your support for the Risberg brothers as they carry the Metal flag, waving it for battle and preparing to delve deep into the stories of Heavy Metal magazine. You can almost picture them writing one of those stories for the next issue, somewhere in a parallel universe.
That’s how damn good the power and the forces of evil are here. They grab you right where you want to be, leaving you wondering what will happen next. Then the thrash sound hits like a cannon blast in the last few seconds of the track, taking you back to the Bay Area before riding off into another epic-like adventure on ‘Fleur de Sledgehammer’.
When you hear a title like that, you might almost think of Thor from Marvel Comics, but this is WAY, way different. Here, the attacks get even more menacing and in your face as the trio puts its psychedelic power into the cosmic void. Reverb-soaked vocals and superb ascending and descending guitar work dominate the midsection, where Palm really excels.
It seems to me that 10,000 Years were listening to other prog and metal bands, some often flying under the radar, for inspiration. You can hear hints of Amon Düül II, Elephant9 with Reine Fiske, Voivod, and Blue Öyster Cult woven into these climactic journeys. At times, it feels like the band is sailing toward the monolith in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, heading into a trippy stargate sequence in the final segment of the film.
‘Church of the Red Museum’ features a reverb-heavy, krautrock-like guitar intro that Palm drives forward before getting his motorcycle revved up. The Risberg brothers then ride off into the night with a turbo-charged rocker that could easily become a sing-along anthem.
Meanwhile, ‘Alien Tactics’ and ‘Two Million Stones’ compete with Mastodon’s Crack the Skye-era sound, continuing where ‘Oblivion’ left off as an epic-like metal opera. At the same time, 10,000 Years gives both Star Wars and Star Trek a big, giant middle finger, and honestly, it totally deserves to be there.
‘Paranoidum’ sees Alex making his bass sound like a fuzzed-up metallic helicopter soaring across the sky, ready to take aim at the Babylonians who try to attack Taarna. In my mind, the track becomes more than just a sidekick to her story; it feels like it is helping lead her toward her destiny as she prepares to put an end to the people responsible for the destruction of her town and the council chambers in the original film.
Closing up shop is the title track, ‘Esox Lucifer’. This is where the Sabbathian vibrations hit hard, but 10,000 Years adds the gothic structure of The Cure’s Pornography-era sound. Call it a doom-metal/post-punk atmosphere. Yeah, that’s more like it!
It may sound like an odd combination, but once the tidal wave comes at you at 500 miles per hour, ready to destroy another town, you’d better run like hell. 10,000 Years brings in the gasoline tanks and spreads the flames like wildfire, building toward a brutal, fast-paced climax. The shivering atmosphere kicks you in the gut so hard that you never know what to expect next.
So, what can I say? 10,000 Years’ new album is more than just doom. It’s cosmic, thrashy, brutal, dark, and drenched in post-punk atmosphere, all wrapped into one powerful release that the band has unleashed in 2026. Esox Lucifer is the kind of record that doesn’t politely knock on the door, it kicks it down, sets the room on fire, and asks you to turn the volume up.
If this is where 10,000 Years are heading, then the late 2020s could get very interesting. Consider this a brutal wake-up call: the trio has arrived with something heavy, strange, psychedelic, and unapologetically their own. Now I’m left wondering just how far down the cosmic rabbit hole they’ll take us next.
