{"id":498745,"date":"2026-03-27T18:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/498745\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T18:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:54:08","slug":"cruel-force-haneda-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/498745\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruel Force – Haneda Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Evolution. It\u2019s one of those principles that seems to undergird just about every aspect of existence in this universe. As students of our most favorite of genres, we often speak about the \u201cevolution of heavy metal\u201d and how it has birthed a plethora of subgenres of varying degrees of viability. While some of these subgenres carry enough useful traits to become long-lasting pillars in the monument of heavy metal, others seem to serve the role of transitional forms or \u201cmissing links\u201d between more well-known styles. Case in point: speed metal. Often seen as a momentary stop on metal\u2019s journey from traditional to thrash, relatively few bands have built a career on speed alone. Acts who start with speed metal (many early thrash bands and power metal bands, especially) often incorporate other elements or transition to something else entirely. While this may be the general trend in metal\u2019s history, Germany\u2019s Cruel Force says, \u201cFuck that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Formed back in the late aughts as a blackened thrash\/speed metal band, Cruel Force regrouped after a long hiatus, reinventing themselves as a pure and simple speed metal band with 2023\u2019s Dawn of the Axe<\/a>, an album that impressed me enough to earn a spot on my list of honorable mentions<\/a> for that year. Well, if that was the dawn of the axe, 2026\u2019s Haneda is the reign of the axe, an axe that has been meticulously honed and polished to the point of being as beautiful as it is lethal. I\u2019d suggest doing a proper warmup before pressing play on the embedded \u201cWhips-A-Swinging,\u201d because severe neck damage is all but inevitable.<\/p>\n

\ufeffHaneda by CRUEL FORCE<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, Haneda should have come with a warning from the surgeon general stating something like, \u201cMay cause permanent stank face. May cause carpal tunnel syndrome secondary to excessive involuntary air guitar. May cause the user to run through walls, laugh maniacally at inappropriate times, or punch strangers in the face. Do not use while operating motor vehicles, as dangerous and irreversible acceleration has occurred. User may also feel the urge to destroy said vehicle with their bare hands, Street Fighter style.\u201d And that\u2019s just my experience with the record these maniacs have produced. Guitarist Slaughter absolutely lives up to his name, slaying all before him with unbelievable rhythm skills and classic metal leads, while Spider\u2019s fingers crawl across his bass fretboard in an effort to keep up. Carnivore feasts, delivering a timeless, thrashy vocal performance that suits the music oh so well, but MVP honors go to drummer GG Alex, whose incessant fills have managed to become a hallmark of Cruel Force\u2019s sound.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The prospect of 42 minutes of speed metal probably doesn\u2019t sound all that special or exciting, but in Cruel Force\u2019s capable hands, Haneda has managed to transcend the genre\u2019s ham-fisted, beer-guzzling stereotype to create something truly special. The compositions are incredible, ranging from 4-minute rippers like \u201cWhips-A-Swinging,\u201d \u201cSavage Gods,\u201d \u201cSword of Iron,\u201d and \u201cBlack Talon,\u201d stretching into more complex work like \u201cWarlords\u201d or the album\u2019s instrumental centerpiece \u201cCrystal Skull,\u201d and finishing in grand fashion with the epic, 9-minute, Song o\u2019 the Year-frontrunning title track. Every song features wild, yet somehow graceful transitions and killer grooves, and the production is simply beautiful, proving that an album can sound authentically old and brutal while simultaneously feeling cultured and refined. I\u2019m honestly still in shock from how hard this album hit me; what on first listen felt like just a really good speed metal album has revealed itself to be utterly excellent.<\/p>\n

To finish my musings on evolution, Haneda sounds like a handful of speed metal bands become isolated on an island that drifted away from mainland Metal millions of years ago (let\u2019s call this island \u2018Metalgascar\u2019) and whose progeny have spent the intervening time adapting and mutating without any other external musical influence. Where mainland Metal achieved heaviness through ever more extreme vocalization, down-tuning, and genre bastardization, Metalgascar developed its heaviness through ever-increasing speed and compositional quality. Far from being some hunched-over figure towards the beginning of heavy metal\u2019s March of Progress<\/a>, speed metal, in the form of Cruel Force, has achieved its final form, becoming Homo deus, the \u00dcbermensch, the Gigachad, or as the kids say these days, \u201che\u2019s him\u201d (or \u201cshe\u2019s her,\u201d or \u201cthey\u2019re them,\u201d if you prefer). This fantastic record will undoubtedly be on my year-end list (if not atop it), because I doubt that 2026 can produce something that\u2019s more quintessentially metal.<\/p>\n

Rating: 4.5\/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Shadow Kingdom Records<\/a>
Websites: cruelforce.bandcamp.com<\/a> | facebook.com\/cruelforce<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: March 27th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evolution. It\u2019s one of those principles that seems to undergird just about every aspect of existence in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[47816,106159,175406,96,174318,29431,175407,11652,55360,164888,128,263,129,175408,175409,175410,64076,67277,20383,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-498745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-47816","tag-4-5","tag-cruel-force","tag-entertainment","tag-exciter","tag-german-metal","tag-haneda","tag-heavy-metal","tag-judas-priest","tag-mar26","tag-music","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-riot","tag-riot-v","tag-shadow-kingdom-records","tag-slayer","tag-speed-metal","tag-thrash-metal","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}