Charred Walls of the Damned

Seriously, if you read the names of the band members, you feel like you would listen to a superb album because what you hold in hands is an album written by a total supergroup. Here you have ex-band members of Iced Earth, Capharnaum, Death and Judas Priest and to me especially the presence of Tim Owens is something that gave me the chills in the beginning.

And to be honest, after the first song I was sure that this album will kill it. Unfortunately, already after the 2nd song I felt a bit like back then when this disaster happened called Voodoocult. Well, to be honest, this album isn't that awful, but you really struggle to listen to this album to the end.

While Ghost Town was really dramatic, had lots of energy and - the most important part - was structured and everything fit perfectly together, you get From the Abyss. This is one of the most horrible songs I've ever listened to. Have you ever listened to a totally whiney ballad? Now add metal drumming and heavy riffs to it. Charred Walls of the Damned clearly tortured my ears with this abomination of a song!

Thank God they stopped doing things like this on the following tracks, but the main problem still remained - Charred Walls of the Damned clearly lacks of structure. It's like every band member randomly plays his instrument on the following songs, then the parts got added together and they have edited it afterwards to make it listenable somehow.

Well, in the end, their debut album wasn't totally awful. There are still some very good parts in the songs, and the song Manifestations did really impress me, because it is really full of energy and I guess this is maybe the only band next to the already dead Beyond Fear where Tim Owens and his quite ferocious and shrill voice actually fits in.

I actually hope that they improve and work better together as a ban sooner or later, especially after this totally energetic even chaotic performance they showed on this debut album.