Árnyékból a fénybe

So this is the new one from Ossian... more solid power metal, nothing unexpected given their last few albums. It isn't QUITE as awesome as the last one, but is definitely generally very enjoyable. It has its ups and downs, but even the less interesting songs are still pretty decent.

We start with "The Earth's Black Box"... typical lyrics about how rock and roll is the ultimate, yade yade yada. This combined with the usual solid riffage and excellent melodic guitar parts, between the verses, and of course the main solo. This is classic power metal here - nothing too cheesy and flowery, just solid heavy fucking metal.

"Sparks in the Wind" is definitely the heaviest song on here. Not really much above midpaced but the riffage is lethal. "The Long Dream" is a ballad, and is kinda boring. Hit or miss, those things tend to be. No "Waiting for a Savior" to be found here. The ballads on here tend to be a bit boring (the other example being "Princess of Winter").

"Fifteen Minutes". Decent verses lead into an AWESOME chorus. Blind Guardian are at the "why the fuck didn't we think of that???" level. "Last Stop Motel" is very interesting. Tastefully done keyboards, it's sort of a ballad but not really. Not the heaviest song on here, but definitely one of the best. It's also the longest, and has a very nice guitar solo... don't they all! "The Real Matrix" is almost thrash - definitely a vicious speed metal number.

The rest - typical Ossian stuff. Once you hear one of this type of song, you've just about heard them all, but they're so solid and so catchy that you can hear 20 or 30 and not get sick of it. There isn't nearly as much variation as on the insanely great "Metal Music", but much more than the kinda boring "At the Flashpoint". Another solid release by this band, who recently can pretty much do no wrong!