Point Music 2003
Review by 14 September 2003

The German power metal band Domain has been around for a long time; their first album “Our Kingdom” was released in 1986. Since then a lot of happened to the band; they made three albums, then there was a “silent” period of almost ten years and in 2001 they made their come back with the excellent album “One Million Lightyears From Home”. Last year Domain released “The Artefact” an album that received very good critics in the press.

“The Sixth Dimension” is perhaps their heaviest album so far and according to Axel “Ironfinger” Ritt they got their inspiration from the tour with the Hughes-Turner Project. Furthermore the band has a complete new rhythm section; Stefan Kollner on drums(ex-Symphorce) and Sandro Lo Guidice on bass guitar(ex-Circle Of Pain). Twelve of the thirteen tracks on this album are heavy, fast, full of high-pitched vocals, typical drumbeats and extraordinary speedy guitar solos. “World Gone Crazy’ and “Your Favourite Curse” are perfect examples of what sort of music Domain plays and likes. I think that after four or five of these songs you have had enough as a listener and you yearn for something different.

Frontiers 2004
Review by Satu Reunanen, 5 April 2004

Confess. You’re a Dream Theater addict and you’ve got your closet bursting from DT dis and dat. Well, don’t worry, you’re not alone. And one of this years long awaited cd’s for your kind is just this, Tim Donahue’s latest featuring the vocal God James LaBrie in vocals. Tim, who’s graduated from Berklee College of Music in 1982, has designed and built guitars himself and after six releases from which ”Fifth Season”-album was nominated in the top 5 jazz albums of 1986 and so forth, started writing this album with LaBrie’s voice in mind and a progressive metal album in the vein of Dream Theater before even meeting with the man. Some phone calls were made and here’s the result. The drummer was found from Mike Mangini (Extreme/Steve Vai), who’s been playing in Mullmuzzler projects.

Of course you can never be sure what to expect when there’s a DT guy involved. And that’s the case with Madmen & Sinners too. But some DT influences can be found, LaBrie after all had his say while recording the songs. Most of it comes from the vocals of course and the good old ”Beam me up, Scotty” knocked me off the chair (hello Ytsejammers). So, this and some of the proggy material was quite near DT. But most of all the cd is quite spaceous, maybe even more experimental and wider prog than DT. The mood keeps changing, as the opener ”Million Miles” really gives the cd a kicking start with DT-like raging force and keeps bashing for seven minutes. Then comes a slower track, then followed by ”My Heart Bleeds”, an even song with keys tuned in space sound and the chorus jamming in a sad feeling and guitars making their own cacophony with the solo and in the background. ”Feel My Pain” jumps in your face and keeps jamming like the song before, continuing the quite lean and flat approach in somewhat Joe Satriani mood.

”Morte Et Dabo” is the gregorian chant of the album, which brings a melancholic, religious and cathedral-like ambience to the album at times along with church organs. ”Children Of The Flame” is a prog tune having an approach to the older prog, but combining both periods. The older prog influences can be found somewhere from the camp of mellow Pink Floyd-like stuff. ”The End” is a guitar-driven simple, evenly jamming song, and sounded quite useless among this material. ”Master Of The Mind” is one of those powerful progtunes in DT vein, James joining the jamming with gloomy vocals after two minutes have passed. The middle passages have a ”Scenes From A Memory” atmosphere, going somewhere but taking a torchuring moment somewhere in hollow space full of memories.

SPV/Steamhammer 2003
Review by 14 December 2003

I've never really been that impressed by Doro and her "German" singing accent in the past. I always found myself with ear(s) glued to the loud speaker, desperately trying to find out what the lyrics are all about. The first verse went straight over my head most of the time anyway (due to her lively accent), and only the refrain left an lasting impression.

I believe that I've finally seen the light however and Doro is without a doubt the unsung Metal Queen of today. Indeed, "Fur Immer" is a marvelous double DVD with approx. 5 hours of Doro Pesch at her very best. The first DVD includes a 1 hour and 40 minutes long concert in Balve/Germany 2003. Excellent performance by the whole band and you'll get really up close to Doro and her sweaty, little, body (errr... better stop right here). Highlights include smashing live versions of "Hellbound", "True As Steel", Love Me In Black", East Meet West" and many more. The old Warlock classic "All We Are", is perhaps her best shot (still) and your blood really gets boiling to this sing-a-long anthem.

TB Records 2003
Review by Kimmo Toivonen,
9 February 2004

UK band Double Cross have already recieved a lot of positive press for this album, and I think I have to join in, with some reservations though. The band is led by one-time Mama's Boys vocalist Rick Chase, who has also worked with The Bailey's Comet and cult UK AOR act Graffiti, and the line-up also features former members of LIAR and 2 DIE 4 (Not to be confused with Finnish band To/Die/For).

The style of the band is big-sounding AOR, with lots of guitars, lots of keyboards and basically lots of everything. They remind me of the likes of House Of Lords, White Sister, Ten and Magnum vocalist Bob Catley's solo material. Mr. Catley actually provides backing vocals to two of the songs here!

I have reservations about the production, which reflects the "lots of everything"-style of the band. It's totally overwhelming, with layers of keyboards, drums upfront and loud background vocals. I'm beginning to think that this is something decidedly british, since Gary Hughes and Paul Hodson (the producer of the last Bob Catley album) tend to produce this way. Maybe I just don't understand those brits, but I feel that the over-the-top production is suffocating the songs.

Behind the wall of sound there are some fine songs to be found: the classic FM-like "How Do We Know", the fantastic ballad "When Two Worlds Collide", breezy summer AOR track "When We Were Young" and the orientally flavoured "Valley Of The Kings" are among my favourites. As for the others, they're all decent enough, perhaps with the exception of "Touch The Sun" which just didn't work for me.

Indie 2003
Review by 30 Mars 2003

I guess that a Double Eclipse is twice as bad (!?) as a "normal" eclipse? The name is of course connected to the band and the twin brothers Phil (vocals) & Alan Hackney (drums). The Rotherham duo was actually signed to Now&Then records, back in the very early days of the label. Unfortunately? they couldn't agree on terms and it all ran out in the sand in the end.

"Freedom To Function" is their second independent release and we're still talkin' about groovy, Melodic Rock from UK, here. Swedish guitarist Michael Johannesson, was a member of the band up until this record. Well, he recorded 5 of the 10 tracks on this CD before moving back to Sweden. The rest of the guitarwork are done by Richard Spencer.

Noise Records 2003
Review by 8 January 2003

Another year has come and gone and judgeing by this release, 2003 seems to be a grrreat metal year. The debut album by the international band Dragonforce is really something out of the ordinary. International they are indeed and let's go through their line-up shall we. Vocalist ZP Theart is from South-Africa, guitarist Herman Li [Hong Kong], dito Sam Totman [New Zealand], keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov [Ukraine] & drummer Didier Almouzni [France]. They are all based in London/UK though.

Noise/Sanctuary 2004
Review by Urban "Wally" Wallstrom,
2 April 2004

Whiplash warning! How about some furious neck breaking metal executed in tempo furioso? Indeed, Dragonforce is back with their long awaited (only a year though) sophomore release and it's all about s-p-e-e-d really. If you're not into fast (faster! faster!) rocking music in the teutonic metal tradition, tough luck.

I'm also afraid that everything on this disc has been composed and recorded in a hurry. The lads in Dragonforce had a terrible touch of the runs and needed to use the crapper constantly. Seriously though, that's what you'll be thinking about while listening to "Sonic Firestorm". The drummer must have been affected the most as you can't possible play any faster, without losing it completely (technically).

SPV 2002
Review by 2 July 2002

Oh God ! I’m being punished from something ! Can you say raven vocals or German metal ?! I’ve never listened to Drakkar, since the first time I heard them they seemed to me like a b-class metal band. Sure they’re heavy and have some great melodies, but it’s the whole package that counts. And even if they’re Italian they can still manage to copy German metal really well, which in my books isn’t always good.

They do have epic touches too, which are the saving parts on the album. “Galadriel’s Song” is a homage to the father of modern fantasy literature, J. R. R. Tolkien and is a good piece of music that surprises with it’s relaxing, slow atmosphere between all that german metal. It’s the best songs Drakkar has to offer here. Otherwise the music is more like a raven picking on a raw piece of meat. They don’t seem too clear with their ideas and often the way the singer Davide Dell´Orto uses his voice sounds too brutal, not in the way of as in death metal, but he sounds so raw, just like a raven.

The other good song here is “Kingdom Of Madness” and you might’ve guessed it, it’s a cover song from Magnum and Drakkar does a really good job in this. That is if you think that sounding like the original band is good job. In my opinion it is, but I don’t mind hearing other kinds of versions either. On this one though it’s like going back to the eighties and almost like listening to Magnum.

Drakkar has a new line-up here and singer Dell’Orto is one of the new members. The rest of them are bassist Daniele Persoglio and keyboardist Dorrado Solarino. I don’t see much difference here compared to the old band. Maybe Drakkar is a bit more melodic and a bit more mature, but not so much that they would impress me. Even in their heaviness they sometimes have parts too childish to be taken seriously. Maybe the Magnum type of music would suite them better, not being as heavy as they are now with more of epic in it.

Century Media 2003
Review by 3 October 2003

"Children Of The Night" is the new mini-CD (EP in the vinyl days huh?) by Sweden's Dream Evil. Besides the titletrack taken from their latest full release, you'll also find an unplugged version of "Evilized" and two previously unreleased songs. I believe that both "Dragonheart" and "Betrayed" has been avaliable in Japan though?

Century Media 2004
Review by Urban "Wally" Wallstrom,
12 April 2004

"In life I have no religion, besides the Heavy Metal Gods - Dream Evil (2004)". This is only a taster of great things to come... at least according to this excellent 3-track single. Sweden's Dream Evil will release their new CD "The Book Of Heavy Metal" in Europe on the 31st of May. And if the rest of the tracks are anything like this, well, then we're talking about a metal sensation.

Elektra 2003
Review by 10 November 2003

Their last album “Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence” I already awarded with a full 100 points in Aardschok magazine, but now I have to give their new album a perfect review again….. And again I must say, think, it cannot get any better than this…….. But still these five guys amaze me and release an almost even better album every time!!! Almost 70 minutes of extremely well played prog metal can be enjoyed on “Train Of Thought”, and if you felt that their last album, with songs like “The Glass Prison” was heavy, well then, you will be in for a big surprise!!!

With six long tracks, of which one is instrumental, and a short but sweet piano ballad, this is definitely THE prog metal album of the year 2003!! “As I Am” (7:47), the opener starts with typical Dream Theater guitar riffs and is packed with rhythm changes, hooks and rather heavy drums and bass guitar sections. This song also has a catchy chorus, but most remarkable is the fast, mean and furious guitar solo; John is really cooking. The second track called “The Dying Soul” (11:28) starts of like a Metallica song, extremely heavy, DT shoots some metal up your ass here. The two minute musical intro is really “brutal” and then when James starts to sing the song gets a rather melodic sound. Again you will find that lots of things happen within this song, the variety is almost endless and there really never is a dull moment. “Endless Sacrifice” (11:23) opens with a beautiful melodic guitar passage, but this song quickly evolves into another prog metal master piece. Just listen to James singing at his best in the heavy chorus or the highlight of this track: the instrumental duel between Jordan and John. It’s show time for 5 minutes and these guys know how to play...

DREAMHUNTER: "Kingdom Come" 9

Spinefarm Records 2003
Review by 31 October 2003

The year 2002 brought us the debut album from Dreamtale, another power metal band strengthening the triumph of finnish metal around the world. ”Beyond Reality” was a tight album with powerful songs, but the band has been struggling with singer problems till now. Their debut featured the vocals of Marco Hietala from Nightwish on few songs, even as the main vocalist, but Rami Keränen was the singer at the time. On ”Ocean’s Heart” the duty was passed to a new guy, Tomi Viiltola, but his time was short as the band yet again has a new singer in Jarkko Ahola (Cosmic Spell, Teräsbetoni), who’s quite a hard rock singer with a unique voice along with an eightees sound. Future will show how that will work out.

But back to this album and the past. Both Viiltola and Keränen didn’t really fit as singers for Dreamtale. But Viiltola was a step closer to the right sound, though with the number one finnish curse on him; his pronounciation goes haywire at times and it sticks to the ear. The second curse is the curse of a power metal vocalist; what are your limits ? The high notes don’t always work with Viiltola. The chorus in ”Rising Wind” is a good example. He might just need more practise to hit it right. But then again Viiltola can also nicely surprise with his singing. Especially on the slower songs he’s shining. Apart from the vocals, there’s not much to say from the compositions, only a few arrangements went a bit over my head, but didn’t spoil the whole song. Dreamtale, especially Keränen who’s the main song writer, do have the right touch to making power metal. Their songs have that power it needs and the beautiful melody lines and choruses to go with them to make the songs roll and rock. Can’t say ”rock and roll” here, as this is power metal, not some twisting the hips and shaking the ankles...though twisting your neck and spraining the ankle would sound about right.

After the ”Ocean’s Heart” intro which leads to the story of the album, ”Chosen One” starts the album with Stratovarius-like happy power metal notes and keys reminding dancing waves. There’s actually plenty of Stratovarius-influences throughout the album and Gamma Ray, which isn’t a bad thing at all in this case. The second song ”Angel Eyes” is also one of the best tracks here, the arrangements and vocals make it sound like an old ’80’ies band Stormwing and the likes. There’s mighty background vocals on many songs and the mood keeps changing. The female backing vocals were sung by Sanna Natunen and the growls are from Rainer Nygård (Diablo). Among the best tracks are also the quite simple and everchanging ”Tears”, the slower, moving and melancholic tracks ”My Only Wish” and ”If You Will Go”, which show that Dreamtale can also write ballads and slower songs, ’cos these are very touching.

Frontiers 2003
Review by 8 September 2003

Dreamtide rose from the ashes of Fair Warning, and released their first album "Here Comes The Flood" a couple of years ago. It was well recieved by the press and the fans, and I don't see any point why "Dreams For The Daring" wouldn't be as well. Fair Warning fans will be glad to know that it's even closer to that band than the first album was.

As I suspected in my review of the first album, vocalist Olaf Senkbeil has settled into the band quite nicely by now, and his performance is top-notch. However, the production of the album is a bit over-the-top sometimes (the Gary Hughes syndrome?), with just too much of everything. One will have to get used to the "wall of sound" before one can really enjoy these songs!

The highlights of the album are the awesome opener "Dream Real", the catchy "I'm Not With You" and "Land Without Justice". There are no real fillers among the other songs either, even though the last few songs aren't quite as good as the ones before them. It has to be said though, that many of the melodies are frighteningly similar to several Fair Warning songs, but considering that main man Helge Engelke did write many of those FW songs, it's not too surprising.

Nuerra Records 1999
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

Dreamland are a new all-instrumental group who blend various styles in their music. Accomplished musicians they may be, but I personally didn't find much to enjoy about this album. After several spins I can not say that I really remember any of the tunes, apart from a couple of exceptions. first of them is "Leo's Chew Toy", a weird funny tune that has a cool passage there, which reminds me of "5150"-era Van Halen, and the other one is the quite melodic "Until We Meet Again". The other tracks aren't necessarily any worse, but they just failed to hold my attention.

Still, this is very professional sounding debut and I guess if you enjoy guitar/instrumental albums in general, this might be worth checking out.

Frontiers Records 2003
Review by 15 February 2003

AOR semi-god Mark Mangold (American Tears, Touch, Michael Bolton, Mystic Healer, The Sign) returns with his old collaborator Al Fritsch under the equally semi-legendary - not to mention weird - band name of Drive, She Said. "Real Life" is their fifth album, following the "best Of" collection released a few years ago. Long time fans of the band have nothing to worry about, as very little has changed over the years, the style is still the same. The same goes for the album cover as well - this one is just another variation of the driving wheel theme. Well, Journey have that what-ever-insect in most of their covers...

The four first songs are classic D,SS material, similar to the first two albums (the third one steered away from the road and was a bit more introspective). Smooth, soft rockin' of the title track opens the album, followed by a harder-edged and immediately catchy "Stronger". "We Live For Love" is a balladic track, while the classic AOR sound of "What's It Gonna Take?" reminds me of Mangold's "breakthrough" band Touch and their hit "Don't You Know What Love Is".

The album takes a turn for worse with the next five tracks: "Silver White" is simply an unmemorable piano ballad, "Overdrive" an average 70'ies style heavy rock track (Deep Purple-like), while "All Your Heart" and "Hold Me" take the band to a more progressive direction. Earcandy for those into 70'ies pomp, but not for me I'm afraid. Only "Find Your Place" has some appeal to me, but it's not among the best tracks here. However, "When Will It Be Love?" is one of the highlights, an excellent AOR gem with a classic "let's sing the hookline accapella style" intro :)! "How Can I Be Sure?" is the kind of ballad that Celine Dion could have major hit with - except that I doubt that his producers would get rid of the uptempo middle section that rocks a bit too much for someone like her. The pompous, Queen/Styx-like ballad "Always And Forever (Godz)" repeats the trick and has another surprising uptempo middle section. After these two, I was half-expecting the last track "Believe" to pick up the pace after the second chorus, but no, the song remained mid-tempo all the way through and never really took off.

"Real Life" isn't a disappointment as it clearly has its' moments, but it isn't going to rival the first two D,SS albums. Still, considering the fact that both of them were released in a time when a 10-track album was the "standard"...without three of those "lesser" tracks this much more impressive. Oh well, I guess I should hit on the brakes and find a parking space for this car before I lose control...and stop using these ridiculous "driving" metaphors!

Mascot Records 2004
Review by Martien Koolen,
24 május 2004

A new album by Kevin Dubrow, is he still alive and kicking and is he still in the rock business? The answer to all three questions is: yes. But I am not quite sure if Kevin Dubrow still "deserves" a place in the modern rock world….But first let me tell you something about Dubrow's past, especially for the younger readers.

Kevin Dubrow took America by storm in the mid eighties as the lead singer of the famous band Quiet Riot. Their third album "Metal Health"(1983) sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Fuelled by Dubrow's cocky stage performance and his raspy vocal style, the band was definitely one of the most well known bands on the eighties metal scene, although I never really liked their rather simplistic hard rock music.

Indie 2003
Review by Satu Reunanen,
24 June 2004

Dunces history points out to 1999, when the band started out as Sanitarium. Hailing from Tohmajärvi, their music goes back to the basic heavy metal roots with powerful vocals and catchy tunes. ”Waiting For...”-demo was released in 2001, recorded in Caverock Studio by Tero Kinnunen from Nightwish fame. The band started working with ”Kingdom Of Madness” demo already in 2002 and took a whole year in the process, releasing it in 2003. Again Kinnunen was working with them. 2004 saw them live in a huge show in Kitee, headliner being Nightwish and the Ice Hall being sold out for thousands. Now the band is in the studio again working on new songs.

”Kingdom Of Darkness” includes 8 songs and an Iron Maiden cover ”The Trooper” as a live version. The band has written quite impressive music, sounding a bit like Sonata Arctica at times on their earlier days. There’s even the same drive that is familiar from Tarot, including same pompousness and dramatic features as heard in Nightwish and Thunderstone. The vocals have a touch of Dreamtale and the basic parts are heavy enough, though would’ve needed more work on them. ”Kingdom Of Darkness” sounds quite near to a finished product, having strong basis, but Dunces shouldn’t play too seriously. The intro to the cd for instance is too long, the vocal parts with dark, boogie man-feeling to them don’t fit in at all and one or two guitar solos were too empty to be justified for being that long.