In June 2025, Brit metallers The Last Bastion released their debut album ‘Who We Are’, a collection of songs driven by defiantly old school riffs. The songs may well have paid homage to the genre’s forefathers, and the material often sounded like something from the late 80s, but at its heart, the album had a lot of power. The ghosts of the slower, black album era Metallica cut through some of ‘Screaming In Silence’s heavier moments; a massive twin lead guitar creating a vital musical hook during ‘Medusa’ drew influence from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal but, when presented with a slower, heavier edge, also gave a nod to Slayer’s slow numbers, and that track’s featured solo showed how tight the band could be when delivering a raft of fretboard melting sounds. Perhaps most importantly, the huge crunch present during the slower parts of ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ suggested The Last Bastion would be a force of nature in a live setting.

Not a band to rest on their laurels, they’ve now shared a non-album track ‘Legion of The Damned’, which frontman Kev Brown calls the band’s “battle cry…created to capture what [The Last Bastion] do live.”

It’s certainly a track with a massive amount of power. The opening riffs combine the force of classic 80s thrash with the grit and deeper tones of melodic hardcore. Combined, this creates a brilliant sound as indebted to old school metal as it is the current scene. The riffs share a pinch of influence from the more melodic end of Machine Head’s work, which fused with elements of ‘Crusade’ era Trivium and the lead guitar furies of classic Priest creates something that – in pure metal terms – is utterly captivating from the outset. With the flawless arrangement coupled with lyrics concerning togetherness and the opportunity to “stand as one”, inviting the crowd to “make waves across the ground”, it is very much an anthem in the way the band intended. As with the bulk of the album material, the music is instantly familiar, but this will only help to make the recording all the more endearing to those who still enjoy old school metal sounds.

Metal has gone through many different fashions over the decades, but every so often, the need to gravitate back to a unashamedly 80s sound acts as a reminder of the genre’s enduring qualities. Such is the case here: in terms of style, this cannot be faulted. Within these tightly wound four minutes, The Last Bastion show off an unashamed passion for a classic sound, and this call to get fans of an old school metal sound behind them has the potential to outshine even the best of their album tracks.

Take a listen below.