Burning the Witches

The "German Metal Goddess" is at her "best" on this CD. Though the production is a little weak it's obvious that Warlock really wanted to put together a serious metal release here. Sadly, I don't find this to be any more important to the overall progression of metal than say...Battlezone. It's good, but it's not great, it's strong...but not amazing. The band is tight, the production thin and the vocals are the only thing you'll probably recall after one or two solid listens.

Doro and co.'s weakness is that the songwriting really isn't that special. There is little to seperate the material on this CD from 1,000's of other bands who were choking out "fast and exciting" metal CD's in the middle of the 80's. Doro's pipes do a bit (much in the fashion of Sr. Paul Di'Anno) to lift this material from the mundane to something a tad more interesting but the overall concept is lost on me. It's classic 80's metal in that "so classic it didn't really stand out for any other reason than Doro herself". With songtitles like "Homicide Rocker" and "Hateful Guy" you can be assured that the lyric sheet isn't much to look at either.

This CD in all, is totally average though held as an amazing classic because it helped to set Doro up in one of the longest career's in metal. I geuss that counts for something...but the music just doesn't stand above much of what was going on at the time.

Buy if it you like the over-the-top 80's boogie-down metal...but don't look for anything mindblowing.