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Sometimes albums are released at the wrong time, when all the work with art work, recording of the songs and so on is ready for the public, the the audience has left and the spotlights is pointing in another direction. Maybe this is what happened to Empire's disc's. The German guitarist Rolf Munkes super-group project didn't get to the top of the charts.

With band members as Tony Martin (Sabbath), Don Airey (Purple), Neil Murray (Whitesnake) and special guest on drums Anders Johansson (Hammerfall) they deserved a better fate.

This album named 'Trading Souls' was originally released in 2003 and it still sounds fresh and modern as the songs were written this year. I'm glad to get the opportunity to discover this little piece of rock art. It's a nice melodic hard rock album with several good rock tunes with heavy riffs and really big vocal efforts from Mr. Martin.

If you missed them (like I did) in the beginning of this millennium and if you are a fan of rock 'n' roll songs with clean vocals, good choruses, nice melodies, catchy rhythms and brilliant guitar playing, you may find this re-issue worth using some money on.

Fans of Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Sabbath (T.Martin) will find much to appreciate on this disc.

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