“It twists their carnival metal into a set of huge, sticky choruses”: Avatar’s Don’t Go In The Forest is the Halloween metal album for people who like their massive 80s tunes with a side order of creepiness

Avatar posing for a photograph in a forest.

Two decades into their tenure as metal’s resident ringmasters, Avatar have rarely sounded this sure-footed. Their last outing, 2023’s Dance Devil Dance, showed flashes of mainstream bite with the slow-burning success of The Dirt I’m Buried In. Now Don’t Go In The Forest pushes further, twisting their carnival metal into a set of huge, sticky choruses and sharpening their misfit DNA into songs built to go the distance.

We get our first taste on Tonight We Must Be Warriors, a rousing anthem with the widescreen lift of Welcome To The Black Parade. Barely a beat passes before In The Airwaves muscles through, Jonas Jarlsby’s hulking riffs and Johannes Eckerström’s rasp slammed against an 80s-tinted chorus, a reminder that with Avatar you should always expect the unexpected.