Mob Rules - Temple Of Two Suns

*=Staff's pick	The Temple Fanfare Pilot of Earth* Outer Space* Celebration Day (Sun Serenade Opus 1.) Flag of Life (Sun Serenade Opus 2.)* Unknown Man Hold On Evolution's Falling Inside the Fire Eyes of All Young* Hold On - Reprise

Genre	Heavy/Power Metal	Klaus Dirks	Vocals
Tracks	11	Matthias Mineur	Guitar
Runningtime	48 Min.	Oliver Fuhlhage	Guitar
Label	SPV	Thorsten Plorin	Bass
Release	01 Jan. 2001	Arved Mannott	Drums
Country	Germany	Sascha Onnen	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

Here we have something interesting. A german metal band that doesn't sound "german". If I had to categorize it after "country sound", I would have to say american. Normally you hear american bands that try to sound "german", and not so often the other way around. I have always been under the impression that german bands want to stick with their own sound as long as they can, since that has showned itself to be a winning concept. But what does this fact mean in reality? Is this a good thing... or a bad?

I would have to say - good. The american touch isn't at all that significant, and Mob Rules are exposing one riff better than the other here - the two strong openers Pilot of Earth and Outer Space are really good tracks, and the bridges and choruses are sticking like they are supposed to. Microphonecontroller Klaus Dirks are doing a good job delivering the lyrics, but without neither rising above anything we've heard before, nor falling below average.

The album falls into a pretty midtempo state after the first couple of songs, and stays there until the end, apart from the track Eyes of All Young second from last which is a really good track, with excellent riffs and good flow. If they'd replace the 3-4 most mediocre songs on this album with songs of that caliber, I'd say they got a killer album. Because as it is now we get the pretty anonymous heavy riffing and groove rather than really sticking melodies, harmonysoloing and climbing the scales in full speed. There is still something special about this album, and even if they do metal after the common blueprint, they do it with a special touch. They have a pretty good sense for songcomposing after all, and they perform it well, but it's not really holding all the way.

The closing "reprise" on Hold On is pretty useless, I must say - spare me from that next time. Taking an average ballad. and making a another version just with some extra guitars as a wall of sound in the back doesn't make it better, and certainly doesn't make it legimite to shove a track like that in our face twice on the same album. If they'd speed it up to a powermetal version of the same song - with double bassdrums and twin harmonysolos - now that's in interesting concept and totally different thing! That's what I'd like to see.

I could recommend the ones that want to check these guys out - cause they are worth that - to start with the album they release before this one: Savage Land. That one is a way better album that contains a lot of those things that I miss here. I hope this is just temporary, and that they will get back on track again, because in their best moments Mob Rules are really, really good. But regarding this album, the conclusion comes down to this: well-played standardmetal from Germany without that little extra....

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	7	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tommy