Heavenly - Virus |
Published Dec. 27 2006
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The Dark Memories* |
| Genre | Power Metal |
Benjamin Sotto
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Vocals
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| Tracks | 9 |
Charley Corbiaux
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Guitar
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| Runningtime | 50 Min. |
Olivier Lapauze
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Guitar
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| Label | AFM Records |
Matthieu Plana
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Bass
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| Release | 26 Jan. 2007 |
Thomas Das Neves
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Drums
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| Country | France |
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Keyboards
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| Similar artists | Gamma Ray, Helloween | ||
(I am re-posting this review because the previous stated release date was unfortunatley only for the Japanese market. This new and corrected date is for the european release.)
France has not raised many metal bands throughout history,
let alone any good ones. I can think of a handful decent black- and
death metal bands but practically no heavy/power constellations worth
mentioning. Heavenly, however, is the exception. A few years have passed
since their great album Dust To Dust (2004), which followed up the pretty
lukewarm Coming From the Sky (2000) and Sign Of The Winner (2001). They
have matured and improved significantly along the way and continue to
do so here as well. This album is packed with delicious riffs, leads,
bridges and refrains which results in killer songs like for example
The Dark Memories, Virus and Liberty but there are also a couple of
mediocre ones present like When The Rain Begins To Fall, sometimes just
a refrain (albeit most of the times brilliant) saving them.
It is a known fact that Heavenly always have had certain elements of
Gamma Ray in their music but this time they really take it to the extreme.
Show me the person that after listening to this album says that he or
she can not find traces of the Heading For Tomorrow or Land Of The Free
albums in each and every song, and I can tell you that he or she is
either deaf, lobotomized or a 50 Cent-fan. Strangely enough, it does
not sound like direct copying since Heavenly have their own characteristic
style and something that makes them at least a tiny bit special. Apart
from a few cases where we are talking about actual and full scale rip-offs,
they are doing it very well and with class. The fact is that I think
Heavenly is doing Gamma Ray-music better than the originals at then
moment (and by saying that I am hinting that I realise that I overrated
the latest Gamma Ray album quite a bit). So if you are a diehard
fan of that stuff, do not read the rest of the review, just run like
the wind to your closest cd store and pick this up.
The vocals are worth a few words of their own. Still very Kai Hansen-esque,
perhaps even more than before, but they are not quite as good as they
used to. They are very characteristic and special and most of the times
great but when taking the real high tones, which occurs very often on
this album, they sound like they are on the edge of cracking up and
it would do the music good if Sotto would keep it more in the lower
regions. That would sound better and more powerful and suit the music
better.
It is bombastic and well played power metal of the classic school and
they keep going and developing on the road the started beating with
Dust To Dust and any fan of that album should absolutely appreciate
this one. This is among the absolute best the genre has to offer today.
What holds back the grade here is that there is a bit too much difference
between the mighty peaks and the unfortunately present lows.
See
also review of: Carpe Diem
, Dust To Dust , Sign
Of The Winner
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Production
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Vocals
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Compositions
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8,5 |
7 |
8 |
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Summary
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8 chalices of 10 - Tommy |
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