You take two of the very best voices in metal these days, creates an album cut precisely for their voices and you have immediately success? Well not quite! The first album was a very good melodic metal album with some great songs, and the second picks up exactly where the first one left us...

Russell Allen (Symphony X) and Jorn Lande (ex-Masterplan among many) both belong in the Champions League of vocalists, and I rate both of them among my favourite singers - and they prove just why so many think highly of them as performing artists. Their performances alone make this album a mandatory purchase for most metal fans, and both deliver the goods once more!

While 'The Revenge' vocally lives up to the hype surrounding this project, I really can't say the music impresses me quite the same. Magnus Karlsson is a very talented guitarist and song writer, and he has created 12 good metal songs with a nice flair for melody. But none of the songs is elevated into the stratosphere; they all stay down on Earth - never sweeping me off my feet.

The production is hard and heavy and in your face, which I would think has a lot to do with the involvement of Dennis Ward, who has mixed the album. Don't be scarred off, because this is still solid and should please hard rock and metal fans around the Globe, just like the first album did.

Good one!