Heimat is an album that lies between the iron discipline of metal and the cathartic chaos of punk. Opening and closing with genuinely gorgeous orchestral string arrangements, Heimat erupts with the urgency of an army, as lyrics roar against historical and ongoing injustice with a passion that pleads and rages with the ferocity of black metal and the raw desperation of post-hardcore.

The German quintet Heaven Shall Burn have long carried an anti-fascist banner, and on Heimat (which translates literally to ‘Homeland’), the complicated history of a country scarred by the worst forms of nationalism is used as a launchpad for a furious, anguished scream at the interminable war machine. The thunderous double-kick runs of Lamb of God meets the sweeping scale of symphonic black and death metal without feeling meticulous or detached the way much extreme modern metal does, crashing forward with punk-like recklessness.

The string overture and coda give the record a grand, cinematic arc which makes the relentless assault of the full-band tracks hit extremely hard with immense production, layered chugs, blast beats, and vocals that sound more like they’re leading a battalion than a band. Their take on Killswitch Engage’s Numbered Days invites Jesse Leach to reprise his original role in a thunderous display of pinch harmonics and devastating groove, lifting the metalcore classic into a fist-pumping anthem steeped in apocalyptic dread.

Heimat is a reminder of how emotionally potent extreme music can be when it trades clinical perfection for raw urgency. Marcus Bischoff sounds like a man possessed, unleashing a colossal, vampiric roar that easily rivals the best vocalists in black metal, carried by arena-ready drums and soaring melodic guitar lines.

For all its symphonic grandeur and technical heft, Heimat ultimately feels more rooted in punk ethics than metal showmanship. Heaven Shall Burn may pull their building blocks from black, death, and groove metal, but their urgency, rawness, and bluntness over virtuosity has more in common with Discharge than most of their extreme metal peers. Every scream feels like a statement of intent, and even the most intricate passages feel driven by purpose rather than flash.

Heimat is a record by a band who have been at it since 1995, whose professionalism and compositional skill are matched by a sense of moral urgency that hasn’t dulled one bit in 30 years. This album is grand and symphonic, but also blunt and direct, and by the time the final string coda plays out, you’ve been lifted, spun, and hurled through a storm of noise and feeling. It’s exhausting, it’s cathartic, and it proves that Heaven Shall Burn are one of metal’s most passionate voices.