Mob Rules - Tales From Beyond

Published March 18 2016

*=Staff's pick	Dykemaster's Tale* Somerled Signs On The Edge My Kingdom Come* The Healer Dust Of Vengeance A Tale From Beyond: Part I: Through The Eye Of The Storm* Part II: A Mirror Inside Part III: Science Save Me! Outer Space (Re-recorded bonus track)

Genre	Melodic Heavy Metal	Klaus Dirks	Vocals
Tracks	11	Matthias Mineur	Guitar
Running time	60 Min.	Sven Lüdke	Guitar
Label	Steamhammer/SPV	Markus Brinkmann	Bass
Release	March 18, 2016	Nikolas Fritz	Drums
Country	Germany	Jan Christian Halfbrodt	Keyboard
Producer	Markus Teske
Similar artists	---

In my personal opinion these German melodic metallers have, despite a number of lineup changes, ever since the first album Savage Land almost always delivered good quality records. I know for sure that most of you guys reading this have one or a couple of bands too that you really can't understand why they're not bigger than what they in fact are and Mob Rules is of course one of those bands in my book.

Lead vocalist Klaus Dirks continuously comes out with a great voice and even if his lisp is something that I hear quite regularly, I still like his tone of voice and the way he is able to bring forth appealing melodies through his performance. If you happen to fancy what this unit has done before you will arguably like this work too since pretty much the entire record follows Mob Rules' already established sound. It doesn't contain flawless perfection musically, yet they surely know how to write good songs, even though they maybe, this far into their career, are to some extent also running out of new ideas and therefore choose to continue in quite the same vein as before.

For example and fuel to the fire the bonus track is a re-recorded version of Outer Space and the song My Kingdom Come was released already back in August 2014 as a single in the Timekeeper box set. I'm no big fan of reusing stuff, but regarding the latter, maybe it's a clever decision anyway since it's one hell of a song still. Furthermore and although the album's opening track, Dykemaster's Tale, indeed is an amazing piece of music as well, the 21st century Iron Maiden rip offs popping up now and then are a little bit too obvious to be really okay. It might be sheer coincidence, but it makes you wonder of course.

Despite the music's outcome being rather recognizable and reminiscent of previous material and even if in all honesty everything truthfully isn't super awesome to the point of extreme, I anyway think that Mob Rules without a doubt manages once again to put out a really valid record, simply because it comprises lots of songs with stunning melodies and captivating hooks and that's just what matters the most in the end according to me.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	3	7	7	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe