Album review: Orbit Culture – Death Above Life

Over the course of the past decade, Orbit Culture have been steadily carving their name into metal. In 2025, they've stood up, hulkingly tall, and smashed an imprint of themselves everywhere they go. The Swedish quartet's turn with Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium on The Poison Ascendancy tour saw them barrelling their way through The O2 with ease, while delays and a shortened set only made their main stage appearance at Download this summer more compressed and deadly.

With Death Above Life, they've turned this change-up of gear into a creative one as well. Their music has always been built around a chassis of riffs and chest-out power that can square up to previous tourmates Slipknot or Knocked Loose, but here everything feels like it's been levelled up. Opener Inferna rides in on deadly, surgically-precise chugs that feel like they've been down the gym, while the big, dramatic chorus – again, not an unused tool in Orbit Culture's kit – is a scaled-up thing, all drama and long-reach. More direct, the one-two of Bloodhound is a beefy pit starter, while the Parkway Drive-ish Inside The Waves (one of the best things here), with its staccato bounce and yell-along chorus, is metalcore precision-tooled for big stages. It's sharp, but never sterile, perfectly calibrated for max impact.

Mainman Niklas Karlsson has expressed a love for soundtracks and noted their influence on the album. You can hear what he means. Underneath The Tales Of War and enormous highlight Nerve, a swelling power comes from the synths underneath the metal assault. When this ambition feeds into the title-track, already powered by stupidly heavy guitar drops and electronic glitches, it shows just how well the band wield this stuff.

This all feels like a grab for something greater, bigger than before. Orbit Culture were already capable of delivering a knockout, but Death Above Life feels like they're hauling themselves into the next weight category.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Parkway Drive, In Flames, Trivium

Death Above Life is released on October 3 via Century Media