Diabolic Symphony

Here’s the second attack with vocalist Ronny Hemlin as vocalist. Just like the last albums, we get heavy/power metal, but not the usual kind of flower power metal. And this time around, the guys have also added on some dark and mystical keyboardplaying. There are bands out there that uses keyboards way too much, and in the wrong way. Steel Attack uses it pretty much in the songs on this album, but in the right way..and as I said, they only make the songs darker and cooler sounding. The band makes a awesome performance, Ronny is singing fucking great as usual, and man it fits the music great of course. We have the guitar session spitting out heavy and great riffs (and a hell of a great solopassage on “Show Me The Way”). The bass, well it can absolutely be heard, and the bassplayer does what he should do, give more heaviness to the song. And also new drummer Tommy shows some cool skills, a bit more creative than former drummer Mike. And in general the album has a heavy production (they have improved with the production in the faster parts).

The album has some really great songs, but pretty much of fillers too. Let’s begin with the great ones. The first, and titlesong “Diabolic Symphony” is easily one of the better on the album, with a dark atmosphere, heavy riffs and really great melodies, they also did a video for this one. Good choice. The second song, the speedier “Dead Forever”. Awesome song with the album’s best pre-chorus + chorus. The pre-chorus with it’s awesome “Now it is time to bleed for your sins”, Ronny voice in that part is so strong and gives a excellent picture of his awesome vocals. The third and mid-tempo “Shallow Seas Of Hatred”. Heavy and great intro and verses, though a pretty lame chorus. “Embraced By Fear”, the fifth song. A speedier one with cool verses and a kind of “soaring” chorus (it actually begins with that word too). After that “Invisible God”. Heavy once again, and with a really melodic chorus, but it kicks ass. The ninth song “Show Me The Way”, has similiar verses like the titletrack, but diverses because of Ronny’s kind of singing on this song. The chorus is a cool one, and as I mentioned in the beginning the solo part is great and without doubt the best solo on this album. Good thing also is that it’s not a short solo but a fairly long one. Then we have “I Bow My Head In Shame”, hard riffing, but calm & melodic in the verses. The verses are OK, but the song’s strong parts lie in the pre-chorus and chorus (a heavy one). The last song on the “better side” is the last song “The Other Side”. Heavy song (again!) with a maybe too long and melodic, but still pretty good chorus. In any way, a nice song to end the album with, both musical and lyrical.The other songs I haven’t mentioned now is in my ears fillers. They just feel way too uninspired and uninteresting. You think it’s a bad excuse or something ? Well then, listen to for example “Haunting” and then we’ll see if you haven’t heard it thousands of times before.

Overall; there are 8 great songs out of 12 on this album. And most of the “good” songs are great, and I have a very hard time deciding which album is best between this and “Enslaved”, but in the end I must say that “Diabolic” wins. Just because it’s heavier, has more good songs, better production, better drumming + the dark sounding keyboards. And also, awesome cover and the logo is at least better than the one on “Enslaved”. I really hope Steel Attack will get some success with this album, if not, I would be very surprised ! Recommended, yes.

Best songs: Diabolic Symphony, Dead Forever, Show Me The Way