Brainstorm - Scary Creatures

Published January 06 2016

*=Staff's pick	The World To See* How Much Can You Take We Are…* Where Angels Dream Scary Creatures Twisted Ways* Caressed By The Blackness Scars In Your Eyes* Take Me To The Never Sky Among The Clouds

Genre	Heavy Metal	Andy B. Franck	Vocals
Tracks	10	Torsten Ihlenfeld	Guitar
Running time	50 Min.	Milan Loncaric	Guitar
Label	AFM Records	Antonio Ieva	Bass
Release	January 15, 2016	Dieter Bernert	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboard
Producer	-
Similar artists	---

Anyone who expects a major change in a band's total appearance from one record to another should immediately go and look elsewhere because it certainly won't be found within the realms of the German outfit Brainstorm. There are naturally some subtle nuances and new stuff, but generally the band is still continuously struggling for greater prosperity with its power metal oriented heavy metal.

The music is as always energetic and pretty heavy and also quite dark at times, yet it's still melodic and vivid too, which gives the whole record a good balance between opposites. They neither diverge from the feature of letting Franck's voice function as lead and background vocals simultaneously, which I think always has been something that has separated this band from the rest. It's not like they're one of a kind doing this, but they do it with such precision that it becomes a really important component to the overall performance.

Initially I'm delighted that things seem to be just like before, since I usually love this type of rather powerful metal where the vocalist can sing for real and not just splutters the words out. After listening to this release for a couple of weeks I however feel, even though each individual song feels kind of fresh, that overall this is something that I've heard perhaps too many times on previous efforts. I mean, I obviously do like the band's style, yet at the same time, I think that they are in need of some kind of restart or revival to get back to first-class songwriting again.

Even if the songs are basically all right, it seems like this is a little bit too much of a routine job. It is sort of running on idle and it does neither feel like a work fully completed, or maybe the guys haven't been given the needed amount of time to finish this thing up properly. I'm probably a little unfair in my words above, because the album is actually a decent and acceptable one, only not strong enough for a band of this capacity and for a band that holds a stunning back catalogue like Brainstorm does.

See also review of: Firesoul , On The Spur Of The Moment , Liquid Monster , Soul Temptation , Metus Mortis

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	4	7	8	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe