Sorted Out

Zar’s ‘Live Your Life Forever’ captivated me from the get-go, and was a regular appearance on the ipod and playlists – a stunning outing of the power melody persuasion, of a caliber rarely equaled. The strength of said album encouraged me to seek out their other materials, and I must admit, for one reason or another, I expected to see a sizeable slip in quality in this one due to it’s date, and the fact that it’s predecessor was in casual parlance a ‘hard act to follow’, yet I was pleasantly surprised with a solid album, which, though taking a slight shift in direction, is a worthy follow-up to the consistently stunning debut effort. ‘Sorted Out’ manages to rock hard, perhaps harder than the preceding outing, continuing the tradition of headbangable slow/mid pacers, and all all round great songwriting prowess. I must admit, I was a little turned of by the prospect of the album, upon hearing the band had parted with vocalist John Lawton, whose performance on the debut had been exemplary, but was glad to hear Tommy Bloch can handle things satisfactorily.

I must mention that with this release, the band sounds akin to late 80’s Maiden somewhat – a feel carried through in numerous ways. The mid paced power metal themed ‘Sign of the elder’ showcases a sleek, modern production sound and musical direction. The band sounds different enough on this album, but if you listen you will hear likenesses to ‘Live Your Life Forever’ in this song, and much of the material. Guitars in this one are very crisp, and interestingly, have somewhat of a Maidenish tone. The greatest similarity however are the vocals of Tommy Bloch, who sounds incredibly like Bruce Dickinson, I don’t care where you’re from. This, and the fantastical, epic themes, slower tempos and production remind one of ‘Seventh Son’ era Maiden, and sometimes of Bruce Dickinson’s solo era stuff. In any case, the style present here is cool enough, with similarity to a less aggressive Maiden, without sounding like they were trying to hard to imitate the Brits.

A nice follow-up album, this one is solid, yet lacks the cool synth-heavy and hook-laden approach of the debut. The material is all quite good, although it doesn’t jump out at you like the debut material. This isn’t quite power metal, but the lyrical themes are often it that vein, for example the ballad ‘Carry On’, which sounds more like a conventional rock outing about fantastical stuff. The album is quite consistent as I’ve mentioned, though it’s not great, and there’s no ‘favorite’ tracks to speak as a result. I’m disappointed in the change of direction taken here, (largely because of my fixation with well-done melodic synthy power-rock), but at least they didn’t bail on it in favor of a commercial rock sound, like others have done. Decent stuff here, and shouldn’t disappoint fans of the debut too much, but not a great album by any means.

-DeathRiderDoom