Review Time – Masquerade! Masquerade!

Straight from the bowels of Hell…or at least somewhere equally dramatic…comes The Masquerade, a symphonic theatre-metal outfit led by none other than The Maestro, self-declared ruler of the underworld. He’s backed by his band of cursed Mannequins, former mortals who committed unspeakable atrocities and have since been dragged back up from the inferno to shred for eternity. Standard stuff, really.

Their debut single, “Enter the Masquerade,” is the opening salvo from Escape From Hell, the band’s first full-length, which dropped on 15th November. If you like your metal draped in velvet, soaked in blood, and whispered to you by a demon in full stage makeup, you’ll want to have a listen.

Ghost Meets Grand Guignol (But Nasty)

The Masquerade sound like what would happen if Ghost took a nasty turn after a bad acid trip and started cosplaying Avatar in a crumbling opera house. But there’s no wink here, no smug irony. Where other theatrical acts might play up the camp, The Masquerade double down on the darkness. It’s all smoke, mirrors, blast beats and genuinely unsettling grandeur.

“Enter the Masquerade” tells the tale of a poor soul freshly arrived in Hell, met at the gates by The Maestro himself. The track plays like a twisted welcome party, part ritual, part mockery, where the crowd’s not sure if they’re supposed to dance or run. There’s a pulse to it: relentless drums, a riff that stalks rather than sprints, and a vocal delivery that leans more into performance art than clean singing.

According to The Maestro (via the flames of press release purgatory), the song was crafted as a full-throttle opener, something to get the pit moving, the horns raised, and the sinners swaying. Mission accomplished.

Darkness Done Right

Sure, theatrical metal’s not for everyone. But if you’re tired of bands who flirt with darkness only to back out when things get too real, The Masquerade might be your poison. There’s no self-aware cheekiness here, just full-on doom pageantry, done with conviction. Whether that’s terrifying or brilliant is probably up to you.

There’s more to come, but for now, “Enter the Masquerade” does exactly what it promises. It opens the gates. Whether you walk through them is your call.