Saxon - Into the Labyrinth [Clear & Black Marble Holland Import]

Saxon's Into the Labyrinth returns as a limited 180-gram Holland import on clear and black marbled vinyl, revisiting the British heavy metal veterans' 18th studio album from 2009.

Written between tours, partly at singer Biff Byford's house in France, the album arrived some three decades into the band's career and found them sounding hungry. The line-up of Byford, guitarists Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt, bassist Nibbs Carter and drummer Nigel Glockler delivers the galloping riffs and big choruses that keep Saxon at the heart of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal story, with Matthias Ulmer adding keyboard colour.

Battalions of Steel opens with a suitably heavy charge, and Live to Rock, the first single, is a fist-in-the-air anthem made for festival fields. Valley of the Kings heads to ancient Egypt, with Byford determined to get his pharaohs right, while Demon Sweeney Todd brings some gothic theatre to the party.

The album closes with Coming Home in a bluesy bottleneck version, reworking a song first heard in electric form on Killing Ground, a welcome change of pace after all that steel.

Classic Saxon with a darker, more adventurous streak, and the marbled pressing makes it a sharp-looking addition to any metal collection. The old guard can still teach the young bands a thing or two.