Curse of Heaven

Al and pals are going places. Oh yes, they are. And this just shows it - the songwriting has been there for a while (I've heard most of these songs for years now) and now they get a production job that's top-notch, and Al turns in his greatest vocal performance ever.

Three new songs, three old ones. Classic ones, I mean. New stuff. The Curse of Heaven, pretty good opener - Maiden with a touch of Exciter. The stuff Ravage is known for, and sounding more and more like Grave Digger every day. Terror's Head is the highlight of the album - man, this one is catchy power metal, and I mean power in the good sense, not like those wackjob Finns or Italians with their many dragons and swords and ball-less-ness and...

SOME PEOPLE KNOW HOW TO ROCK HARDER THAN OTHERS. And that is a rule of mathematics, and can be proven empirically, and this is left as an exercise to the reader. Then, the epic The Wasteland. So this is what the latest Iron Maiden would sound like if the latest Iron Maiden were more exciting, and Blaze Bayley were back on vocals, except mixed a bit with the dude from Grave Digger, and this sounds like a happier X Factor, with the aforementioned other influences. There be power metal here.

Reign Fall is very old and very necro and has that monster intro riff that causes people to bang heads and all, as is the custom. Wicked Way is almost as necro and almost as good, and ya know what, this is getting to how good these guys are live, and The King Forgotten.

There is a LAW that SAYETH: The King Forgotten must be THE last song on the album, sayeth the LORD, he with the HORNS and all, yade yada. FOREVER!!!!!!!! Hallowed Be Thy Name, with Wolf Hoffmann's guitar tone, and so much endless soloing, so little time. This song has progressed like some sort of thing that progresses a lot, as it is on the old, necro, grim, kvlter than a really kvlt thing, the demo from 1999 whose title escapes me right now because a lot of things escape now. FOREVER!!!!!

But yeah this fucking rules, rules hard, and does rule. Dunno what's up with the DVD case, but the material is rule-age. You like metal that doesn't suck, and doesn't sound like ass, and there is no Opeth to be found here. Fuck Opeth and their sucktacular ways of suck.

I should rewrite this when I'm sober.