Soul Collector and the follow-up Roomservice was both very strong efforts who impressed a lot of people including myself. That fact didn't lower my expectations towards Battalion Beast and it fulfil those expectations to the utmost. The band more or less continues from where Roomservice left of, but the keyboard has gotten a more central role. The combo still blend brutal militaristic death metal with a good amount of black metal, but the black metal elements are perhaps even more present than before. It really comes to show in the last two tracks "War in the North" and "The Spirit of Soldiers" which borders to be full-fledged black metal.

The music is complex and often extremely brutal, but still it has an accessibility and catchiness that just make it go straight in. The songs are varied and packed with cascades of impressive riffs. Each song is stuffed with details and new seems to pop up with each listen. Drummer Reno Kiilerich sound perhaps as versatile as before. The hyperblast drumming is still very present, but he does slow down ever once in a while. Moreover the vocals also appear even more diverse than earlier. Bo Summer often varies his vocals between his trademark guttural growls to a more hysteric type of black metal shrieks. It's also a relief that the band haven't cut back on the use of keyboard as it add immensely to the feel of the songs. It's very clear that the band is aware of what they are doing. Never do they seem to loose the overview nor focus. Noting seems to have been left to circumstances. There are really no specific highlights on Battalion Beast as each song in itself is a highlight.

Battalion Beast is brutal death metal of the highest calibre. It doesn't come much better than this and that fact become clearer and clearer with each listen. If you like your death metal brutal, complex and to a degree different from the vast majority of releases then Battalion Beast is impossible to avoid.