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Grade
Scale adopted at MetalKings.com (starting from the lowest)
1
- Shite
2 - Could be worse
3 - Could be better
4 - Damn good
5 - Killer
4/5
CATHARSIS
Prizrachny Svet (Eerie Light)
2004
Irond
Russian power metal
WOW! This band seems to be Russian metal scene's best kept secret!
Cannot say I've heard all of their albums though the band is quite
famous among domestic metal fans. Upon hearing the opening track "Kto
Ty? (Who Are You?)" you wanna shout out loud since the melody is catchy,
lyrics are genius and the singer is one of a kind. The absolute hit!
The rest of the tracks aren't that good but nice enough. A couple
of dumb remixes spoil the whole thing but the fact that the singer
perfectly reproduces the same self-titled song in both Russian and
English is beyond all criticism. Moreover, this singer has almost
no accent, which is a REALLY rare thing. That's what the power metal
scene in Russia should be all about! Newcomers - listen well, it concerns
you! (Dead Ripper)
5/5
CROSSFADE
White On Blue
2004
MTM Music / CD-Maximum
melodic AOR
I can't really tell you how many projects singer Goran Edman (ex-Yngwie
Malmsteen, now in Karkamaniac, Brazen Abbot, Street Talk) was involved
in. Can he try to deliver something brand new? Well, he tries but
this album is the pure AOR release capable to please any fan of Edman
himself or hard rocker. But just you wait - there's no hard rock on
this album! A couple of tracks are dance synthesizer-arranged ones,
which perfectly fit into the album-title-generated melancholic mood.
While listening to this album you can remember good old times, dream
of the distant future or even lie back with some girlfriend who is
surely to be amazed by the Crossfade music. And though some songs
contain pessimistic lyrics musically it can be a masterpiece where
piano rules all the way. An extremely calming album. (Dead
Ripper)
5/5
EDGUY
Lavatory Love Machine
2004
Nuclear Blast / Irond
melodic power metal
The second single off the new album "Hellfire Club". And very
interesting because most of the songs are performed with acoustic
guitars and piano. It worth mentioning that the title track does not
differ too much from the original electric version and sounds no less
interesting. But what was very surprising when looking at the tracklist
is the cover-version of Europe "I'll Cry For You". Still die-hard
fans of the Swedes cannot be surprised. You know, Europe has the acoustic
version of the song, which is that Edguy covered on this EP. However,
Sammet vocals sound much more emotional than those of Joey Tempest
while musically it's the pure copy. Another song "Reach Out" possibly
did not make it into the album because of its softness and pop-oriented
style. The bonus video clip of the title track definitely worth checking
out. (Dead Ripper)
5/5
ERIKA
Cold Winter Night
1990 / 2004
MTM Music / CD-Maximum
melodic AOR
How many female rock singers from Sweden can you name? No, don't
tell me about ABBA or Roxette - they are not really hard rock musicians.
The one who deserves to be named and remembered is Erika Norberg.
Though not many people know her as Norberg since in the early 1990s
she was married to her legendary countryman Yngwie Malmsteen. Their
first year of marriage was marked by the release of this album. Do
not compare this music to Doro or Zed Yago - you just get melodic
tunes with lots of keyboards and mellow guitars. However, at times
musicians get crazy and come up with danceable and hard rocking tracks
including "Emergency" to which Yngwie himself supplied a great guitar
solo. Half of the album tracks perfectly fit into the discotheque
format especially "Super Sonic City" off Erika's 1996 release "Planet
X". If you enjoy passionate female singing with nice melodies this
album is solemnly for you. (Dead Ripper)
5/5
EVIL MASQUERADE
Welcome To The Show
2004
Frontiers / CD-Maximum
melodic power metal
Whatever you say I have been waiting for this album to come out
for a long long time. Maybe the belief that Royal Hunt recorded their
best album "Land Of Broken Hearts" with Henrik Brockman was the reason
for the wait. And finally nearly 10 years after the debut Royal Hunt
album Henrik wound up in a real band. Even though you will find the
chief Hunter's name of Andre Anderssen on this release don't draw
any parallels. The album is a serious attempt aimed to surprise any
person with concept and arrangements. Henrik himself is no more than
a singer here - everything was written and produced by another Henrik,
whom some people might remember as the Swedish Mohani Mohana leader.
This very Henrik seems to be a huge fan of classical music like Wagner
and Bach. The album has no cliches - you can never guess when a guitar
or keyboards are going to strike down on you. Highly recommended!
To all the fans of Royal Hunt - you have never been so surprised.
(Dead Ripper)
2/5
FIURACH
Chaospawner
1999 / 2004
Scarlet / CD-Maximum
death metal
Quite a weird band… Maybe that's doom, maybe black, or maybe something
else of that nature. The intro is the typical Manowar one but then
the total chaos starts ruling. Tempos change as frequent as possible
and the style cannot be identified at all. About the singer, if you
can call this shouting nightmarish guy a singer then any of you can
be the one. At times musicians wander into the power metal world but
only for a few seconds; then the chaos starts again. I wonder what
is the future of this band… or maybe that was the beginning of the
end? (Dead Ripper)
5/5
FREEDOM CALL
Live Invasion
2004
Steamhammer / Soyuz Music
melodic power metal
I can perfectly remember that during the visit to Moscow leader
and drummer of Freedom Call Daniel Zimmermann promised to release
the band's double live album along with the much sought after "Taragon"
EP. German people mostly always do as they say so the live album is
on the market. The first CD contains the live concert itself while
the second one features the EP with 2 bonus tracks. What you heard
at the concert in Moscow you can hear on the live album; the quality
is as high as ever. Everything a Freedom Call fan might want to hear
is on the album, a type of a live anthology of all the three albums.
The bonus CD is not bad at all as well. Apart from the well-known
cover-versions of Ultravox "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" and Helloween
"Dr. Stein" we get the re-recording of Wishful Thinking "Hiroshima",
which original is very hard to remember. The latter is very much in
the Japanese style and sounds quite charming. The CD booklet has lots
of photos including those from the Red Square. Enjoy! (Dead
Ripper)
3/5
HIGHLORD
Medusa's Coil
2004
Arise / CD-Maximum
power metal
One more album from an Italian heavy metal group. Are there really
good heavy metal bands out there? Possibly. Well, the album is OK
but the only thing rotting it to the bone is the keyboard sound. Please,
tell me, why do you need to throw keyboard passages in areas that
should be banned from this instrument? Oh, and melodies of the majority
of tracks are extremely typical and cannot cause any type of excitement
especially because they are VERY hard to remember. Sad but true. The
album ends with the cover-version - Helloween's "Power". A nice variant
but backing vocals make me think of some heavy drinkers begging for
some change in the subway just to get another one. It's up to you
to choose now! (Dead Ripper)
4/5
HOUSE OF LORDS
The Power And The Myth
2003 / 2004
Frontiers / CD-Maximum
melodic power metal
Twelve years have passed after the release of the latest album
from this legendary American band, which existence was visibly secured
with huge sums of money and enormous support of KISS bass axeman Gene
Simmons. The band managed to capture the heart of any melodic hard
rock fan in 1988-1990. But the latest album coming out in 1992 was
somehow weak and failed thanks also to the mountainous rise of grunge
music. Moreover, this time the reunion failed to materialize - can
you imagine House Of Lords without its leader and keyboardist Gregg
Giuffria? The remaining members attempted to replace Gregg with infamous
Derek Sherinian but those two guys obviously come from different schools
of music. That is why the music became a bit Dream Theater-like with
progressive elements but still struggling into the hard rock field.
The melodies are nice and musicians did not lose their abilities over
the years BUT generally the album sounds pretty dry with no fun and
no deep emotions inside. However, most of the American hard rock bands
experience those troubles but it's a shame that big bands like House
Of Lords are in the same league with those newcomers. Still you might
enjoy the fact that there are no modern influences on the album.
(Dead Ripper)
4/5
STEVE HOWE
Portraits Of Bob Dylan
1999 / 2004
Eagle / CD-Maximum
acoustic guitar
Very well known rock guitarist of the Yes fame Steve Howe decided
to record the tribute album to one of the most legendary and mysterious
rock person, Bob Dylan. As it goes with originals all the songs are
performed on the acoustic guitar. I hope you are familiar with some
works of Dylan since Steve selected the most famous songs. It worth
mentioning that Dylan never tried to show up as a genius musician;
he is more famous as a poet. In general, the album reminds of country
music performers with much more serious lyrics. In any case, a nice
bonfire could perfectly fit into the CD booklet. (Dead Ripper)
3/5
LUNA AD NOCTUM
Dimness' Profound
2003 / 2004
Golden Lake Productions / CD-Maximum
black metal
What can you expect from a band with such a name apart from black
metal music? Musicians accurately painted their faces and sang how
a true metal man should meet his last hour of the hard life. Please,
fans of black metal music, forgive me but the more I listen to albums
of that style the more I think that keyboards is the solemn instrument
of the style. The same thing happens here; when guitarist, drummer
and bassist play together all you can hear is the obsessed singer
with weak voice and keyboards on the backtrack. The rest of the musicians
are appearing less than often. OK, let's not talk about the lyrics
since newcomer bands rarely come up with anything special. Arbeiten,
arbeiten and more arbeiten! (Dead Ripper)
3/5
MANIGANCE
Ange Ou Demon
2002 / 2004
NTS / CD-Maximum
power metal
How often do you listen to power metal albums in French? Only
several Japanese heavy metal bands ever included words of the native
language into their songs. And here we have the full-length album
in French! Musically speaking this is more or less a standard power
metal album. But you clearly can get the impression that the track
order is absolutely wrong. The fastest song comes up in the very end
while the ballad comes after the album-titled melodic track. In general,
the album is average with nothing special in it. A French mistake!
And whatever you might think the main problem is not the language;
the album simply lacks catchy melodies. A disappointment! (Dead
Ripper)
1/5
MARILLION AND THE POSITIVE LIGHT
Tales From The Engine Room
1998 / 2004
Eagle / CD-Maximum
techno dance
What can be worse than weak remixes of the music of the band,
which is considered to be the ultimate classic of the progressive
rock style? Out of meditating psychedelic tracks there turned out
to be techno-dance sounds more suitable for some long-forgotten village
discotheque. If it is an experiment the album is more or less okay
but to release the classical album "Engine Room" is such a damaging
variant is the pure shame! SHAME!!! (Dead Ripper)
4/5
ALEX MASI
In The Name Of Mozart
2004
Lion Music / Irond
acoustic guitar
A while ago Italian-born and America-living guitar player Alex
Masi decided to pay homage to his musical guru in the form of classical
musicians. That's when he put away the electric guitar and tried the
acoustic one. The first album of the new-found series was dedicated
to Bach while on the second one Alex attempts to cover the music of
Mozart. Remembering the words of some friends who used to play classical
tracks in Soviet music schools those attempts are hard to perform.
And moreover, not every classical track can be played on the acoustic
guitar. Alex managed to succeed but there is one hell of a problem.
Like in case with Michael Schenker "Thank You" series those albums
quickly get boring. So after listening to a couple of tracks from
the album you either get amazed by them, take your old acoustic guitar
from the wall and try to play everything yourself or throw the record
in the farthest depth of your music collection. (Dead Ripper)
3/5
MATTSSON
Power Games
2003 / 2004
Lion Music / CD-Maximum
melodic hard rock
After the Malmsteen-styled "Another Dimension" guitarist Lars
Eric Mattsson changed the singer to ex-shouter of progressive metallers
Balance Of Power Lance King and distanced himself for a while from
the presidency of "Lion Music" to record this album. This time Lars
decided to get heavily involved with the progressive metal field and
you can see it for yourself by looking at the number of tracks and
album length - eight tracks for some 60 minutes. However, Lars would
have better continued copying the Swedish guitar god and the proof
is the 12-minute long "Beyond The Horizon - Guitar Concerto No. 1".
Arrangements of other songs are weak as ever and the singer also failed
to fit into the whole concept. An average album for extremely die-hard
fans. (Dead Ripper)
5/5
ANDY MCCOY
Too Much Ain't Enough
1988 / 2004
Warner Finland
hard rock
Along with the debut album of Michael Monroe from the legendary
Hanoi Rocks fame the Finnish branch of "Warner" re-issued the first
album of Hanoi guitarist Andy McCoy. Do not expect something in the
vein of alma mater; Andy himself strengthened many times that he wanted
to depart from the classic rock'n'roll style and try his hand in other
musical directions. So the album is the perfect confirmation. Only
the first track "I Will Follow" can be more or less compared to Hanoi
Rocks. The rest is the full-scale combination of various styles. Country-like
"Tell Me A Story", danceable "Knee Deep In Sky High" and crazy driving
"Too Far Gone" and "Heart Of The Matter". Generally speaking, this
is the album of the 100%-rock'n'rolling guitarist who just wanted
to have some fun and go behind traditional set of cliches. Any really
talented musician is capable of composing catchy music in whatever
style and this album is the proof. (Dead Ripper)
3/5
NOVA ART
The Art Of Nova
2004
self-produced
Russian progressive metal
After listening to bands like Dream Theatre and Yes Russian metal
bands started following the progressive metal direction. This newcomer
band Nova sounds pretty convincing. Musical findings are nice, lyrics
are thought-over and serious while the singer goes into the English
language. Problems are here as well. Can you imagine a progressive
metal band without a keyboard player? It's like a power metal band
without a guitar player. Moreover - guys, do you really need to hear
rappings of the singer in the introduction to the album? OK, Nova
has some work to do. If you consider little experience and minor number
of live shows so far the band has some interesting future. (Dead
Ripper)
2/5
PERFECT
The Second Coming Of Rock'n'Roll
2004
self-produced
Russian glam rock
OK, before starting the review of this album I'd like to say a
couple of words about the history of the glam rock movement. You can
easily split the whole movement into two parts - before the 1990s
and after the 1990s. The first part is as significant as ever giving
birth to legends like Hanoi Rocks, Motley Crue and maybe KISS playing
crazy driving rock'n'roll mixed with punk influences. The second part
includes old rockers like L. A. Guns and Faster Pussycat, who still
think they are playing glam rock. So this Russian band Perfect truly
belongs to the second part. No craziness is here; heavy and groovy
riffs and rough vocals. The album ends with the cover-version of Motley
Crue "Public Enemy #1" - complete disappointment. No luck - a spit
in the sky. (Dead Ripper)
5/5
POWERQUEST
Neverworld
2004
Frontiers / CD-Maximum
melodic power metal / hard rock
Departing from the Italian sympho-power metal label "Underground
Symphony" this British band wound up with another Italian company
"Frontiers", which is a bit stylistically different from the group.
However, musicians survived the change and issued a brand new masterpiece.
Progress and growth are right here in your face! Just listen to "Temple
Of Fire" and "Sacred Land" and you get what I mean. It's still strange
that the poorly represented British power metal scene could give birth
to such a magnificent outfit. At the same time "Frontiers" roots showed
up pretty clearly since the album heavily befits from those hard rock
influences. Even a long list of guest musicians from Threshold, Arena
and Edenbridge are not really needed for the band, maybe only for
promotion issues. Such brilliant talented guys do not need any support.
A much better album than the debut one. (Dead Ripper)
5/5
REQUIEM
Mask Of Damnation
2003 / 2004
Sound Riot / CD-Maximum
melodic power metal
What new can you expect from a Finnish band? You might expect
something ordinary but this time the tables have turned. In times
when the whole Finnish scene is fighting hard to become a Stratovarius
clone this Requiem outfit produces already the second album, which
is unlikely to be compared with Timo Tolkki classics. Here are the
reasons. Try to remember a power metal album from recent couple of
years going for 45 minutes. Keyboards are a major domination of the
band providing some symphonic elements into it. The guitar also sounds
very different to typical ones since the solo is biting you all the
way in a very nice and pleasant form. However, the singer seems to
experience troubles with his vocal range but it only separates the
band from its metal competitors. You'd like to take this group into
account; a promising one. (Dead Ripper)
4/5
SHYLOCK
Welcome To Illusion
2004
MTM Music / CD-Maximum
melodic hard rock
After the groundbreaking "Pyronized" the third album of German
hard rockers Shylock was just about to become a masterpiece. It's
NOT! Beginnings of fast and driving riffs from the previous CD got
lost in the production. The album is full of groovy mid-tempo tracks,
which are supposed to be surely welcomed by an average hard rock fan.
But while on the previous album Shylock followed the path of Bonfire
this time the chase was set to the Gotthard style - prove it with
"The Need" or "Guilty". However, the band still managed to compose
catchy and heartwarming ballads able to satisfy the most demanding
rockers. At the same time a couple of fast and driving tracks could
have flourished the album and make it a major hit this year. So far
four points is the highest mark possible. (Dead Ripper)
5/5
STREET TALK
Destination
2004
MTM Music / CD-Maximum
melodic AOR
There is nothing the German "MTM Music" company does best but
releasing compilations of various melodic hard rock legends. If full-length
studio albums are not that good compilations are the best wayout.
That's what this album is all about. A somehow legendary Swedish band
Street Talk that launched into the music world in 1997 and has since
released three albums came to the best-of point. Even if you never
heard the name of the band but consider yourself to be a melodic hard
rock maniac Street Talk is the nice addition to your music favorites.
Everything needed to bounce on the AOR/melodic hard rock edge is on
the compilation including the charming vocals of Goran Edman of the
Yngwie Malmsteen, Karkamaniac and Brazen Abbot fame, magnificent guitar
parts and keyboard passages. A parallel can stretch into the late
1980s Europe style. And it's not your typical best-of - two Japanese
bonus tracks are ready to please fans of the band. Sit back and enjoy!
(Dead Ripper)
3/5
TWISTED SISTER
Under The Blade
1982 / 2004
Eagle / CD-Maximum
hard rock
The debut album of the upcoming New York hard rock legend. Dee
Snider and the boys are only starting to invade the American market.
And I think they failed here. Just compare this album with the debut
LP of Motley Crue "Too Fast For Love" from 1982 and you know what
I mean. The album sounds as raw as possible maybe thanks to the remastering
crew. The guitar sounds like a pure shave-hook. In terms of image
and music Twisted Sister tried to copy KISS but failed as well especially
in the musical terms. Still the album has its moments in songs "Bad
Boys (Of Rock'n'Roll)" and "Shoot 'Em Down". But there are YEARS to
go to reach the quality of "Stay Hungry" and to gain the stable image
recognition. OK, come and get it! (Dead Ripper)
5/5
VANIZE
High Proof
2000 / 2004
Breaker / CD-Maximum
melodic power metal
C'mon, these days everyone knows the infamous brother of Accept
legend Udo Dirkschneider, Peter! The youth was not really famous in
the glorious 1980s and happened to release only one album with his
band Danton, which failed miserably. But in the 1990s Peter came out
and did his best forming the Vanize project. This is the album number
3. If you want to draw parallels with Accept then consider "Objection
Overruled" meaning powerful and tight sound with brilliant melodies
and typically German rhythm. Peter sings pretty close to his brother
although some melodic moments reveal the magic of his voice. In general,
the album is 100% full of metal hits and is the classic metal masterpiece.
Relatives, you know… (Dead Ripper)
5/5
VOODOO HILL
Wild Seed Of Mother Earth
2004
Frontiers / CD-Maximum
melodic hard rock
A new album of the amazing project produced by Italian guitar
genius Dario Mollo and legendary singer Glen Hughes. What can you
expect from two professionals? Such people simply cannot make crappy
albums. The current situation is the same; the record strikes you
with its energy and melodic moments. All the musicians perfectly accomplish
their duties and even the pure fan of funk music Hughes turned out
to be a full-time rocker. His vocals reach its peak in songs like
"Still Evergreen", "My Eyes Don't See It" è "She Cast No Shadow"!
Once in a while musicians start playing power metal styled tunes and
Hughes showcases with genuine talent in all those cases. A very professional
album of great musicians. (Dead Ripper)
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