Good time for evening momentum. As I sit in my chair, reading the relaunch issue of number 1 from the Adult Illustrated Fantasy Magazine of Heavy Metal published last year, I was taken to the world of a metallic force that speaks of the powering attitude and electrical spark of a supergroup comprising Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner, Rainbow’s Ronnie Romero, Michael Schenker Group and Accept’s Christopher Williams, and Uriah Heep’s Dave Rimmer. That band is Elegant Weapons.
Since their formation back on October 25, 2022, with original bassist Rex Brown from Pantera and Judas Priest alumnus Scott Travis, the band had unleashed their 2023 debut Horns for Halo and was ranked as one of the best debut albums from Classic Rock Magazine three years ago. Now, here we are, in 2026, as Elegant Weapons are coming back swinging, but this time with vengeance on their latest album, Evolution.
Released on the Exciter label, Evolution sparks this massive electrical energy charging at you, 500 volts of powering inferno, in a way that the group pulls in these incredible blistering, yet skull-crunching, hard rock sounds that come out of the volcanoes, ready to erupt at any second.
‘Holy Roller’ almost sounds like a Hendrix-esque permanenting volume, continuing where he had left off from ‘Foxey Lady’ with a bluesy yet slithering arrangement with grateful riffs and its sci-fi lyrical textures that ease into the powder keg for some excellent wah-wah galoring twists. It’s an excellent page, yet one of the tracks to get you pumping up for more details on what’s to come.
Opening with the ‘Evil Eyes’, the riffs slip into the battlefield, marching towards the council chambers, prepping to destroy the innocent, and attacking the townsfolk; you get the idea. Setting in this barbaric wasteland with ambition and reaching its boiling point to blare out into the night whilst ‘Generation Me’ keeps the blood pressure rising to view the nightmare we’re witnessing and the post-pandemic universes with a massive reality check upon our very eyes.
‘Bridges Burn’ recalls the wonders of UFO’s Strangers in the Night era, honouring Schenker’s playing during his time with the band, adding in that cat-and-mouse chase in the midsection before setting off into space and time with its layered and organ-lifting momentum on ‘Come Back to Me’.
Here, we see Elegant Weapons going in this church-like sermon after embarking on this long, painful journey to find the inner self before heading back into the race, steering in at 600 miles per hour with its Randy Rhoads-like attitude for ‘The Devil Calls’. It’s in your face, synth-driven loophole, and epic-like stories from the Dark Horse comics or from Taarna: The Last Taarakian.
But it does feel like an alternate soundtrack to the anime series Ronin Warriors, with its extra punch as both ‘Mercy of the Fallen’ and ‘Thrown to the Wolves’ raise their guitars from the grave to lend in more heavy attacks whilst laying down the law with some killer improvs. That’s how elegant metallic Weapons are; they don’t mess around, nor do they need a rulebook. They throw the rulebook into the fire and hit their direct target at the right place, at the right time.
Evolution strikes me as a wonderful, yet cannon-blasting release Elegant Weapons have unleashed for 2026. It’s metal, hard rock, and a mind-boggling release the supergroup has put out this year. It may take a while to get into, but damn! These guys have proven to me that they can do no wrong in my book to get metal on its feet and rise with more momentum and more power. Before I close it off, is it just me, or does the album cover bear a tip of the hat to the wonderful covers Metal Hurlant would publish?
