Unleash the Beast

Came across this batch in the late-90’s; never heard of them before that but I did like what they had assembled on the first demo and the full-length debut, both confident mixtures of power, speed and thrash topped by cool high-strung vocals reminiscent of Kai Hansen and Dirk Schroder (Iron Angel).

Their “Deutschland” EP fell into my hands as someone already aware of the band’s existence, and was actually a really cool reunion slab featuring a pretty similar style to the one from the earlier works, classic metal to the bone. From the original line-up there were the guitar player Bob Luman and the vocalist Rik Baez who were leading the show, and with three new recruits joining them the album reviewed here became a fact five years after the EP, the major reason for the biggy gap between the two recordings being the dissolution of the band once again.

Those familiar with the lads’ style will bump into not any major surprises the approach staying closer to the retro power/speed metal parametres, above all, with blistering intense cuts (“Ring of Madness”, “Damages”) aggravating the atmosphere until the arrival of the first stop from the hyper-active freighter, the title-track, a stomping officiant battle hymn which leads a string of less energetic power metal-fixated numbers (“Souls of Sorrow”, “ Blood Of the Innocent”) alongside a noteworthy nod (“Borrowed Time”) to the doom metal canons. With those pieces in play the second half is not as dynamic although “Changes” tries to ring the changes with a more aggressive thrashy veneer, all such rebellious attempts mortified by the very well executed cover of Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Sea”.

Baez doesn’t pitch it as high as on the earlier works but he still performs fairly adequately, holding his own with a steady not very adventurous clean mid-ranged timbre, doing a particularly good job in impersonating DIO (R.I.P.) on the mentioned Sabbath cover. Music-wise this effort delivers but it too soon gives up the fast-paced idea, and once it has abandoned it, it finds it hard to go back to it. The album is over an hour long, there was definitely room for a few more blitzkriegers the latter a regular presence on the menu before. The beast in this case is only partially unleashed; there’s definitely at least one chain that seems to hold it back…

and the band could have surely taken care of it if they had lasted longer; only that the beast wasn’t given another chance as the guys were no more shortly after this opus’ release… until the next short-lived gathering.