After spending a decent amount of time with the album, I can certainly see why there was some label interest here, while HUNTED play a sort of traditional heavy metal, power metal, NWOBHM blend it’s all covered over by a layer of technical wizardry and a slight hint of progressive metal, giving everything on the album a very world-class feel to it…
Tag: Power Metal
Holy Force – Holy Force
If Melodic Metal is your thing then you would possibly dig into this release, your typical melodic hooks are there, straight ahead power metal with the more me-tallish vocals of Boals. Personally I like Mark in this more metal-esque style as opposed to other progressive stuff he has done in the past. The guitar talents of Chen are evident, but I was looking to see more from this guy since he created this band to begin with.
Alestorm – Back Through Time
it’s certainly an improvement over the band’s second offering and is absolutely a step in the right direction. The attempts at seriousness that the second album showed are all but gone here and replacing them is a whole heap of piratey goodness where rum and shipwrecks are the main menu mixed with a few really funny moments as well…
Dreamcatcher – SoulDesign
The guest vocals of Jacob Hansen add a powerful punch on the chorus bridge on “Take Hold”, and no not of the flame. The tight rhythm section jumps out again on the song “In The Depths Of A Dream” where the drums pierce with thundering roar. But the remainder songs follow the same meandering plot unfortunately.
Pegazus – In Metal We Trust
PEGAZUS are one of those bands that just seem to always be there when needed. Sure a nine year gap is pretty long these days, but with IN METAL WE TRUST the band has picked up exactly where they left off after the release of their previous album THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN and are clearly back in the saddle…
Borealis – Fall From Grace
The riff-est in “Regeneration” is more prototypical of some of the Gothenburg metal bands and perhaps that fact reigns big on this song because the record was produced by Tomas Johansson at the world famous Panic Room Studios in Sweden, which have worked with bands like Scar Symmetry for instance.
Fullforce – One
Let’s face it reinventing the wheel in this genre as with other genres like progressive metal can turn out to be quite a steep rise, so let’s just say that most of the songs on “One” follow the same structures in terms of melody, but have a decent amount of pace and up tempo shifts that make the album tolerable.
Elvenpath – Elvenpath
That just about sums up perfectly what’s going on here. While there are some NWOBHM ideals and a smidge of power metal, the best way to describe this album is simply ‘EAVY BLOODY METAL!…
Eumeria – Rebel Mind
I was a fan of Outworld’s release in 2006 so I was looking for that kind of punch on the band’s first debut record titled “Rebel Mind”. Also for those shredders and guitar freaks I’ve heard some good things about the band’s guitar player Reece Fullwood, a master shredder per say. The guy has some freak ability on the strings and some of that can be heard on Eumeria’s new record.