An American Power metal band with Carlos Alvarez (guitars,
keyboards, additional vocals), George Eliassen (vocals), Jason Fox (bass) and
Jason Fraticell/Jay Horvath dividing the drums. The album was recorded back in
2012 and has been available as download since then. Besides that there is
also some guest musicians on the album. No idea why it took that long to find a
record company to release a real hardcopy. It sure can't be the music because
this album really rocks.
The
first thing that strikes me is the heavy guitar sound; the riffs really explode
out of the boxes. Some might say that they are mixed too far up front, but I
like it. Another positive point is the bass lines; they give
the songs a nice drive. What makes the album even better is the excellent singing of George.
Perhaps his singing could have been mixed a little bit more on top of the music,
but that's just a little remark for the next album. George has a powerful voice
sounding a bit like Bruce Dickinson and he sure deserves it to shine more.
After the first spin I was quite impressed by the entire album and that doesn't
happen to me a lot lately.
The music is heavy and dark, yet melodic and with
nice vocal parts and choruses. Besides the heavy riffs, guitarist Carlos Alvarez
also produces beautiful soli. The heavy riffing songs are varied with slower
more serene emotional ones like "Moonlight Tight". If you mix
elements of Iced Earth, Mystic Prophecy, Savatage, Helstar, Destiny's End,
Future's End, Brainstorm and Nevermore you could get something like Shadowdance.
If
the band had hired a professional producer/mixer the rating would've been even be
higher. Fans of the bands mentioned above have to check this out.
