Nightmare - Genetic Disorder

Published January 22 2008

*=Staff's pick	Nothing Left Behind* Battleground For Suicide* Queen Of Love & Pain* Conspiracy* Leader Of The Masquerade* Final Procession The Dominion Gate (Part Ii) The Winds Of Sin Forsaken Child A Thrill Of Death Wicked Little Demon* Dawn Of Darkness*

Genre	Power/Prog. Metal	Jo Amore	Vocals
Tracks	12	Alex Hilbert	Guitar
Runningtime	57 Min.	Franck Milleliri	Guitar
Label	Regain Records	Yves Champion	Bass
Release	14 Nov. 2007	David Amore	Drums
Country	France	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	Masterplan, Jorn, Symphony X

Are they really French? I have to reconsider my prejudices about a whole people... Further I have to dig my way down into this band's past, because they have been around since the early 80s, without my knowledge. Not every day you find great 'old' bands you have missed these days. But from the findings I have done so far, with help of the few songs available through the band's Myspace, there seems to be a reason why I haven't noticed them before though. The older songs pretty much sounds like standard power metal without the extra nerve of originality, Jo Amore's singing aside.

Compared to these earlier songs it seems to me that some remarkable progress has been made on this latest release. Maybe the hiring of well-reputed Fredrik Nordström at Sweden's Studio Fredman has something to do with it? Genetic Disorder is the record that Masterplan have failed to do since their self-titled debut. It may be that singer Jo Amore - who by the way started as the band's drummer, before leaving that space to his brother - sounds a lot like a certain Jorn Lande, but I think I find other similarities as well.

Nothing Left Behind leave you with nothing left to wish for as a start, as a piece of mid-tempo, not too complicated progressive metal. If you still want a bit faster tempo and more of a sing-along chorus, Battleground For Suicide delivers just that. Queen Of Love & Pain slows it down to earthshaking mid-tempo again. Conspiracy is yet a bit harder, almost thrashy, with screaming vocals in the verses. Leader Of The Masquerade is another heavy but melodic mid tempo tune of the kind I usually have such a hard time resisting.

So where do you go after such splendid first five songs? Well, naturally you cannot keep up with that level of quality all the way. The next following quintet of compositions is a bit more humane, though still far from bad. On the closing two, Wicked Little Demon and Dawn Of Darkness, the nerve is back. Since I found this promo laying around in my pile of old stuff that I haven't had the time to fully explore and review it barely managed to reach my top list of records 2007. But it is still rising every day and the later release date in the US (February 05, 2008) is excuse enough to hereby recommend it to you all.