Victorius - The Awakening

Published June 24 2013

*=Staff's pick	Age Of Tyranny* Starfire* The Awakening* Lake Of Hope Under Burning Skies Black Sun Demon Legions* Through The Dead Lands Call For Resistance Kings Reborn Metalheart

Genre	Power Metal	David Bassin	Vocals
Tracks	11	Steven Dreissig	Guitar
Running time	48 Min.	Dirk Scharsich	Guitar
Label	Sonic Attack/SPV	Andreas Dockhorn	Bass
Release	24 June 2013	Rene Wähler	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboard
Producer	Lars Rettkovitz
Similar artists	Alpha Tiger, DragonForce

Captivating and speedy power metal in the veins of things we've heard before. These German youngsters definitely don't explore new grounds and perhaps that's not essential when speaking power metal and its pretty familiar and rather ordinary foundations. After the completion of The Awakening guitarist Steven Dreissig and drummer Rene Wähler have been replaced by Sebastian Rasch and Patrick Ziege respectively.

Victorius pretty much focus on speed with extremely captivating melodies, not that much different from DragonForce, although these two bands basically aren't similar to each other. This type of music feels kind of dated, but does that really matter when the end result is ripping the air like a sharpened dagger? Their power metal is quick and strong, rather aggressive without significant brutality, and also straightforward without any dorky grooves that make you focus on other things than the metal they represent.

The major part of the songs are killer and to name a few, the opener Age Of Tyranny is a blasting speed monster, yet with a striking catchiness that makes all my senses activate. To flip the CD and view it from a different direction, we have Demon Legions that is much heavier, darker and slower, still without losing one inch of sheer and inevitable beauty. Lake Of Hope shows more ballad-like approaches, although it's indeed a fast song. Hence we have some variation in their limited space of metal, but to call this a diverse release would be lying. This is a total attack from start to finish.

I won't go over the top and praise every single minute of The Awakening, but if you're a fan of melodic, rampant and catchy power metal, you'd find yourself in a position to totally love this awesome record. This album is one of the most captivating I heard in a long time in this type of music. Strictly contagious and headbanging generating.