Rebellion - Born A Rebel

*=Staff's pick	Born A Rebel* Adrenalin* One For All Word Is War Dragons Fly* Queen Of Spades Iron Flames Through The Fire Devil's Child Meet Your Demon Power Of Evil

Genre	Heavy Metal	Michael Seifert	Vocals
Tracks	11	Uwe Lulis	Guitar
Runningtime	53 Min.	Björn Eilen	Guitar
Label	Drakkar Records	Tomi Göttlich	Bass
Release	28 April 2003	Randal T. Black	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Grave Digger

After the departure from Grave Digger, Uwe Lulis formed this band and released their debut Shakepeare's Macbeth - a Tragedy In Steel back in early 2002, and now they are back with the followup. This continues in the same style as the debut, except for the fact that the lyrics are more based on ordinary life subjects - bikes, the bad things with drugs and so on. This is filled with sharp, to-the-point riffs that are cutting like barbwire. The type of riffs only Sinner, Primal Fear and Grave Digger usually manages to produce, but than again - that is what has made Mr. Lulis a name in the metalscene.

After a strong opening of the album that promises much and creats expectations, it turns out to be something really mediocre, and even though they try to, I guess, they never manage to be much more than a third-class Grave Digger. The songs are good - and than really good, I am the first one to admit - when they are fast, but as soon as they drop to midtempo it tend to get a bit boring, especially since there are no nice midparts or solos. That has never been Lulis' strong side.

In the pressrelease the band says: "You often find that the inital demotapes sound fresher and more energic than the final studio cut. That's an effect we wanted to aviod on Born A Rebel, and that's why we purposely left composing half of the material until the production was already under way". I don't know if that was such a smart thing after all, since the album gives the impression that it sure has potential, but it falls flat because it is really not worked on enough to take advantage of the ideas.

The ballad (Iron Flames) doesn't fit at all, and - along with a remarkable big amount of other songs - it is the reason to why I jump between indifference and honest enthusiasm when I am listening to this. Ther are a few killer highlights indeed, but much too few for keeping up an interest. Vocalist Seifert tries most of the times to sing darker and more powerful than he needs to, and the result is not the best. Certain parallelles can of course be drawn to Chris Boltendahl of Grave Digger (I guess that is how Lulis want this to sound deep inside). He sometimes sound just as hysteric and hyperactive as he looks on pictures, and would do the music a favour if he held back a bit, cause from time to time it sounds just plain good.

If the album had contained more songs in the class of Born A Rebel and Through The Fire, than it would be an album with at least 3 chalices more. This is the type of metal that can work very well live - I would love to see and hear them live - but on cd it has to settle with a number of chalices just below average, only saved by the guitarriffs.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	4	4,5

Summary
4 chalices of 10 - Tommy