Two
guys with former membership in Denmark's
battleship in Heavy Metal: Pretty Maids have
create a new metal band called Now Or Neve'.
Ricky Marx (between 1988 until 1991) and Kenn
Jackson (from 1991 until 2010) together with Jo
Amore, who is also the vocalist in the French
metal band Nightmare. The fourth member is the
experienced drummer Ranzo (Nightmare), he is also
the main writer of the lyrics on this album.
Now Or Never plays in the raw, classical heavy
metal genre (if I have to put it in a specific
folder), but they have spiced it up pretty much
with some big portions of aggressive modern metal.
A pleasant and interesting sound, which have
Pretty Maids' classical metal blended with an
ounce of Malrun, if I have to stay with Danish
metal bands. A high technical level in the guitar
playing and the keyboards give them a fat and
thick sound.
Jo Amore on vocals has a strong powerful voice and
also a worn and a raspy one, which is perfect
tuned to fit the different metal songs that are
served on this nice disc. He must have be born
with very big vocal chord because I have, for a
long time, not heard a singer, who can keep the
tone for as long and strong as Jo. He has a
history as a drummer and he sweeps the floor
with many of the vocal pro's. A brilliant change
of position.
A surprisingly strong debut with strong colors
from the old-school metal, but I must highlight
the tracks with more of the progressive elements.
The two ballads 'An Angel By My Side' and
'Something's Missing' are nice complements to the
harsher metal tracks. 'Brothers' sounds almost
like a song by Disturbed and 'Reach Out for the
Sky' and 'Princess of Undiscovered Land' tastes
very similar to Masterplan. The width in their
metal sound makes this very alive and potent. The
album has a perfect production and this powerful
metal album deliver not any earthshaking news that
could shatter my bones, head or spine, just an
excellent and damn good piece of musical art.
My overall impression is: A splendid debut album
from these rock veterans in a new fresh shape.
Twelve tracks with different moods and
sensitivity, which disables this to be a boring
and standardized metal album. My thumbs are up!
Absolutely something you have to check if you are
a fan of classic heavy metal.
