Black Orchid Empire – Mirrorman (2025)
With a heritage from around the world and a band name the origin of which they forgot, Black Orchid Empire has just released ‘Mirrorman’, their third single of 2025. They play with the fighting spirit of scrappy upstarts, but, in fact, they have been together since 2012 and have been releasing albums since 2016. Given that the number of their monthly listeners on Spotify is creeping up to 30K, they may shortly be disqualified as the UK’s best-kept secret for metalheads.
There are probably several reasons for the band’s dedicated following. They have a reputation as a killer live act, and they play with a tight rhythmic intensity that embodies the frenzy of body blows characteristic of the style. BOE serves up metal’s monolithic lines of chunky guitar (Paul Visser), bass (Dave Ferguson), and drums (Billy Freedom) faithfully. But the band also has a point of distinction in Visser’s cleanly sung melodies and Ferguson’s close-fitting harmonies. It’s not that other metal bands don’t occasionally sing beautiful melodies, but there does seem to be a club-like insistence that anything melodic has to be balanced with guttural screaming. Which is fine, of course, but it’s possible BOE has set itself up for a broader audience by doing away with the guttural part.
‘Mirrorman’ has all of these qualities. Opening with a curious angular riff, the song transitions to a relatively quiet verse with Visser arpeggiating and Ferguson using the upper range of his five-string bass to sketch some harmonies above the guitar. The verses and chorus have something of an appeal to them as Visser sings, “Take a look at me now, ‘cause I’m just like you.” It’s a lyrical aesthetic that works hand in glove with the musical one, as both the trappings of metal and the obstacles in the lyrics beg for a face-to-face discovery.
At a glance, much of Black Orchid Empire’s discography bears out this melding of soft melodies framed by a hard metal trio, as if they have studied TOOL’s approach and gone deeper in the melodic direction. Whether you consider yourself a metalhead or not, check this band out. You may hear something in the style of music that you missed.
Find out more about Black Orchid Empire on their official website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify.
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