JUSTIN’S METAL REVIEWS W/C 14/1/08

 

BRAINSTORM / DOWNBURST

 

It was over 6 years ago when I came across German Power Metal band Brainstorm and as I recall I was totally blown away by their album “Metus Mortis” and they have continued to put out good albums ever since and I’m glad to say that “Downburst” continues the trend.

 

The CD is full well crafted Melodic Metal that will have you singing along in no time with track like “Fire Walk With Me”,”Falling Spiral Down” and “Redemption In Your Eyes” being three prime examples of how good this band are.  The guitar riffs come thick and fast and the drumming is as always creative and precise and the vocals really well sung, not screamed.

 

If you like you’re Metal with a touch of class then Brainstorm are the band for you and are guaranteed to hit the spot every time, look out for them on tour soon.

 

WEBSITE      http://truemetal.org/ & http://www.metalblade.de/

 

DOWNLOAD            “Fire Walk With Me” & “Stained With Sin”

 

TOTAL PLAYING TIME = 43 mins + 10 TRACKS

 

 

BENEDICTUM / SEASONS OF TRAGEDY

 

This is a Texan band fronted by a lady called Veronica Freeman who is as stunning to look at as she is to hear, her voice is similar to Ann Wilson of Heart but with a much harder edge when it’s called for.

 

The bands music is at the Heavier end of the Melodic Metal scale and they certainly know how to Rock with a capital R, right from the start with “Shell Shock” they pull no punches and let rip with an aggressive salvo of riffs and Veronica screaming hear lungs out with the best of them to great effect, “Burn It Out” comes screaming out of the speaker with a high powered car screeching across the speakers before letting loos the guitar riffs.  Over all the songs and musicianship on this album are spotless with no fillers and the Melodic content is high but it doesn’t distract form the fact that this band Rocks.

 

Listen out for the superb melodic touches of “Legacy” and “Steel Rain”, the harder edged “Bare Bones” and “Burn It Out” and the 12 minute epic title track “Season Of Tragedy” that has more twists and turns than a twisty turny thing, there is also a very good version of the Accept track “Balls To The Wall”, this is deservedly album of the week and you can be sure I will be playing this to death, a must buy CD.

 

WEBSITE      http://www.benedictum.net/

 

TOTAL PLAYING TIME = 59 mins + 11 Excellent TRACKS 

 

 

BYZANTINE / OBLIVION BECKONS

 

This is totally weird, just after Christmas I had a dream that I was playing a fantastic new CD by a band called Byzantine on my HFM show, I hadn’t heard of a band by that name a looked through recent Metal magazines to see if I had subconsciously picked it up, with no results and as with most dreams I forgot about it until last week when what did I discover a band called Byzantine had a new album out, spooky or what.

 

When I played the CD I wasn’t too surprised to find that I really did like this CD and that the musical and lyrical content of the band really did speak to me and even though Metalcore is not my usual fare I found it to be most stimulating.  The songs are concise, tight, hardedge affairs with a strong Melodic content and occasionally they break down into off the wall musical interludes that really find as intriguing as the song titles “The Gift Of Discernment”, “Expansion And Collapse” and “Pattern Recognition” being just some of them.

 

Byzantine are as colourful and as interesting as the Eastern Roman Empire that they take their name from and hopefully as memorable and how could I go wrong when it was in my dream, at least it was more accurate than when I dreamt about the lottery numbers.

 

WEBSITE      http://www.myspace.com/byzantine & http://www.prostheticrecords.com/

 

TOTAL PLYAING TIME = 54 mins + 13 TRACKS