Steel Attack - Diabolic Symphony

*=Staff's pick	Diabolic Symphony Dead Forever* Shallow Seas Of Hatred Dreaming* Embraced By Fear* Invisible God Sanctimonious Haunting Show Me The Way Winter Hell I Bow My Head In Shame The Other Side

Genre	Heavy Metal	Ronny Hemlin	Vocals
Tracks	12	John Allan	Guitar
Runningtime	49 Min.	Johan Jalonen	Guitar
Label	Massacre Records	Anden Andersson	Bass
Release	21 April 2006	Tony Elfving	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Tad Morose, Morgana Lefay

Swedish band Steel Attack have evolved in the right direction for every album so far, musically and especially vocally, and piece by piece they have lost most of the extreme power metal elements they had in the beginning of their career. It now sounds way more confident and way more heavier and darker. The term 'power metal' as people know it is very misguiding for this album, but I would still like to describe this as powerful, heavy metal. What they showed on the previous album Enslaved (2004) is now taken quite some steps further.

The tone is set already with the initial song, which is also the title track. It is heavy and dark and they bring forth a thick wall of guitars as foundation that carries a somber but still potent ambience forward. Next song out brings up the tempo and has a brilliant main riff but the dark feeling remains intact. Bands like their fellow countrymen Tad Morose and Morgana Lefey, save most of the progressiveness, pop up in my head. The first half of the album mix some really heavy and slightly uptempo and driven songs with some more epic ones and the red thread is a dark and 'big' sound. The fairly new vocalist Hemlin performs splendidly and makes the powerful sound landscape full justice.

There is overall a high quality on the songs on the album. Even though they are mostly in the same midtempo, they contain mood changes and breaks enough to feel somewhat varied. In some cases, however, I miss a bit more distinct refrains since they sometimes tend to go by unnoticed or just simply not be good enough. There are also a few songs that do not reach all the way and since they are all located at the second half of the album it feels like it loses a bit of its momentum at that point so the high grades have to stand back this time. But this is certainly a very nice and interesting development from Steel Attack. If they continue this form curve they might very well be one of Sweden's best heavy epic bands within another album's time.

See also review of: Predator Of The Empire , Enslaved , Fall Into Madness

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8,5	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tommy