“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

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.

That unpredictability runs riot through the record. Captain Goat lurches like a sea shanty; Dead And Gone And Back Again dances like a dark folk shuffle shot through with tremolo and Johannes’s madman cackle. It’s classic Avatar. Even Abduction Song, with its skittering percussion and sideways storytelling, finds room for a wink amid the creepiness. Yet stepping away from that mischief, the title track dives headlong into glossy 80s AOR, showing how easily they can park the sideshow for a straight-up singalong. And that’s really the point.

For all its stylistic detours, what’s striking is how unashamedly hook-driven this record is. From the impish swing of Abduction Song to the storm-lit pull of Magic Lantern in all its Ozzy-esque grandeur, this is their most accessible outing in years, and a reminder that beneath the greasepaint lies a band intent on outdoing itself. With European dates alongside Iron Maiden under their belts and a UK arena run with Metallica ahead, Avatar seem poised for one of the most buoyant periods of their career.