Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

From The Wild, never from peace, do the offerings of ingenuity flourish. It almost feels innate to humanity’s progression that in throws of chaos we find ways to exert influence, muscle, and persuasion to pour our very being into sharp focus; and as Finnish newcomers Phantomy aptly show in their debut release, From The Wild, the lessons forged in heat are the ones that capture the raw intensity of our soul and wilful determination to be heard.

The small Finnish town of Iisalmi might not register with many outside of the country, a stirring battle fought on its soil between the Swedish and Russian armies perhaps its most notable not in history’s textbooks, but it is with honour that from that same soil comes the excitement of Phantomy, the almost gothic setting of deep unsettling woods merged with unrelenting lakes and an attitude of wonderfully adept determination to be at the heart of the country’s heavy metal scene is the driving point for the band to emerge from.

It is with a display of unpredictability strewn with assurance of its genre that Phamtomy have relished the opportunity to bring the raw aspects of their live set to the wider world in an album that dominates with that often-elusive ingenuity and an energy that is emboldened with the sacrifices the band made to be at the top of their game.

With energised and fearsome metal standards such as High Octane, Tiger Wound, the superb The Freezing Moon, Wild Jungle Woman, and the album title track of From The Wild, which also acts as the record’s opening introduction, the interest in the band will only surely become more uncompromising in the fan’s eyes, the delivery, the sense of ballad meets chemistry explosion is undaunting and magnificent.

From The Wild does exactly what it says on the tin, it is the burning of the past and to which the groundwork of the album stands proudly upon, a moving forward in a dramatic and passionate display of debut fertile brilliance.

Ian D. Hall