Heavy metal bands with female vocalists was a trend last year, and if you didn’t notice there was The Devil’s Blood, Huntress, Jess and the Ancient Ones, Christian Mistress, and Blood Ceremony, just to name a few. What distinguishes Royal Thunder from those listed, and what makes the trend separate from past female-fronted acts, is how those bands are playing heavy metal nostalgically, a claim that might perturb some of their fans, but nothing innovative is presented; they’re simply playing old school heavy metal with lady vocals. Royal Thunder sets themselves apart from the crowd not simply through their amazing songwriting, but with a strong blues tinge to their retro stoner-heavy metal sound. The band is from Georgia, and like so many other bands native to that area, they wear their home on their sleeves and Mlny Parsonz croon captures that haunting feeling of those fall nights in the South.

The album opens up with the track, Parsonz Curse, that kicks off with a bluesy riff and rides that throughout the seven minutes without ever losing you as it brakes, as it climbs, as it forms into an awesome jam. Instantly, Mlny’s howling vocals steal the show and get their hooks into you. Subsequent listens enable the rest of the band’s talent to shine through. The drumming throughout the album is top notch, with the second track Whispering World beginning with one of the best sounding bass drums in recent years as it hits without overpowering everything else while still doing its job. Another gritty riff carries the song as Mlny’s chops on the bass get a chance to stand out as well. No Good is almost too simple in how straightforward and catchy the blues-tinged chorus is.

The peak of the album is the fifth track, Blue. As the longest track on the album, it has the most space to really stretch out and wind as most of the bands longer tracks tend to do without ever over staying their welcome. What makes the album truly great is how at sixty minutes, you’re never left fed up or done with any of it. No song is too long and the album never really drops off in quality even if it suffers from a slightly weaker, but by no means bad, second half. Blue builds up with a plucked riff reminiscent of Kylesa’s stoner-y moments, while Mlny’s bass noticeably plods in the background. It takes a few minutes for her vocals to appear and at nearly a whisper they have quite a haunting effect. Her wailing has the catchiest harmony that sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t release. The third act of this epic track relies on an epic runaway riff that simply never drops into the jam that you quite want it to, but alas it is great.

After Blue, the band slows the pace a bit. Sleeping Witch is maybe the most traditionally doom-y track on the album. South of Somewhere opens with a droning riff for a few minutes before a galloping riff breaks up the minimalistic tone. Drown is probably the weakest link on the album, while clocking in at eight minutes, it never loses you, but it might be deemed the weakest in a very strong set. Minus is a flowery field of pop folk, which serenely contrasts to the darker tones of the rest of the album. The album closes with a nice stomping riff before simply droning out in Black Water Vision.

A criticism that often gets lobbed at these folks is that Parsonz sound on the album is too polished as if she was relying heavily on Auto-tune to create the perfect pitch that she holds throughout the album. However, having seen the band perform live, Parsonz’ vocals stand out and that coarse, bluesy howl of hers was in perfect form, if not more haunting up on stage. The closest to a criticism that I could make is that for having a sort of jam band vibe, they never quite let go the way you expect or want them to. At such an already long length, I don’t think that they needed to add any more minutes to the total length and without any filler tracks the complaint is really nothing more than unnecessary.

Ultimately, this album was simply one of the finer moments of last year and it’s an injustice that it took so long for me to get around to reviewing it. I didn’t love it at first and really took the insistence of my niece to encourage me to stick with it, but damn did it hook me once I gave it the chance.

If you think you can dig their jams, the entire album can be streamed and purchased on their Bandcamp.