Thunderstone - Apocalypse Again

Published March 31 2016

*=Staff's pick	Veterans Of The Apocalypse* The Path Fire And Ice Through The Pain Walk Away Free Higher Wounds* Days Of Our Lives Barren Land

Genre	Power/Heavy Metal	Pasi Rantanen	Vocals
Tracks	9	Nino Laurenne	Guitar
Running time	44 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	AFM Records	Titus Hjelm	Bass
Release	April 1, 2016	Atte Palokangas	Drums
Country	Finland	Jukka Karinen	Keyboard
Producer	Nino Laurenne
Similar artists	---

Thunderstone has with this record reunited with original singer Pasi Rantanen, who appeared on the band's first four efforts from 2002-2007. During Pasi's absence, merely one more album was made, with his successor Rick Altzi behind the microphone, and after a scarce number of spread out live performances the band eventually went on indefinite hiatus.

This comeback album contains many somewhat classic power metal elements, like for instance occasional fast guitar playing, a not so massive overall production and partly loud keyboards. It also comprises some things easily related to heavy metal, such as heavy riffing, just the tempo as a whole and finally, which is making this record deviate a little bit from most power metal albums, the vocals aren't high in pitch more than once in a while.

When listening to Apocalypse Again there's definitely no doubt about who truly is the right voice of Thunderstone. It's not like Pasi is creating miracles out of nothing really, but his contribution is basically making this metal experience end up in a suitable and familiar position and if it's one thing that we metal fans seem to collectively love, it's having things like before and untouched.

At the same time I think that most of the material is just decent and as a whole frankly not anywhere near the band's absolute top compositions and quite frequently it's like the music just finds a way to pass my auditory nerves without affecting me in particular. I only think that the opening track, Veterans Of The Apocalypse, and the 7th track, Wounds, have the power, structure and flow to meet my requirements of a good outcome.

See also review of: Tools Of Destruction , Thunderstone , The Burning

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	5	6	6	5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Tobbe