10,000 Years – All Quiet On The Final Frontier

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · December 23, 2024

The Sweden based 10,000 Years have returned with a new release, All Quiet On The Final Frontier. Formed in 2020, this is the stoner metal’s first album on Ripple Music, which dropped on November 22nd 2024. Their past releases include their 2020 debut EP, 2021’s II, 2023’s III, and various singles also. The lineup is: Alex Risberg on bass and vocals, Alvin Risberg on drums, and Erik Palm on guitars. All Quiet On The Final Frontier is around thirty four minutes long and includes eight tracks total.

The album opens with “Orbital Decay”, an instrumental with seance sounding keyboards and phased out guitars. The introduction gears the listener to the title track, “All Quiet On The Final Frontier”. The song starts with a flange guitar riff that kicks right into the main rhythm. The music has a driving and metallic sound overall with cool vocals courtesy of Alex Risberg. His voice sounds vulnerable and tortured. “The Experiment” cranks right in with a noisy rock sound almost hardcore but very metal also. The band uses amplitudes of phase guitar sounds which work quite well with this song. It gives it a spacy and atmospheric essence. The riffs carry a groove about them and Risberg’s vocals are great for this song. One cool part to the song is the vocals state “now I know what it feels like to be god” repeated twice, then the music pauses with a whispered “beware”. It’s a subtle nuanced build up that really details the creativity of 10,000 Years. It’s the little things that the band does that really captures the listener. “Death Valley Ritual” is another great example of using creative song writing to enhance the song. The vocals start off a little gruff and low register and then augment with his higher torturous bellows. The dynamic trade offs blend nicely. Another excellent enhancement to the song is the killer percussive drumming building up to the guitar leads. Again, these added musical enhancements really make this record very interesting. The next track “The Weight Of A Feather” is another rocker with a mid tempo rhythm. More flange guitars are added to sections but are never over done. The song features a cool break down just before the solo and repeats back with slick double bass drumming. The ending section has spoken samples affixed within the riffing also.

“Ablaze In The Now” begins with a haunting guitar intro with pounding tom drumming in a High On Fire fashion of delivery. The six and a half minute track is the longest on All Quiet On The Final Frontier. It’s also the band’s most harmonious with the great musical ending sequence laced with keyboards and phasing. “High Noon In Sword City” is another banging song with great monstrous riffs and thunderous drumming. The aggressive vocals with the brutal pummeling of the song are escalated with soaring guitar leads. “Down The Heavy Path” closes out the album with another viscous track. The sludge guitar riffing and scorching leads obliterate the song, especially the ending beat down riffage, guitar squeals, and drum hammering. The song concludes with the pounding and the familiar seance from the start but accented with heavy church bells.

I am really impressed with the sound of 10,000 Years on this album. The band has really put forth the work of creating, which I feel is their best release yet. The songs are really well written and the band added just enough intrigue in the music, to make a difference, without compromising their heaviness or style at all. All Quiet On The Final Frontier is an enormous record that will impress many fans who like heavy riff rocking metal music.