Brainstorm "Soul Temptation" CD
[Metal Blade]
From the world capital of power metal (Germany) comes this band whom I've never heard of, even though this is their fifth album and they've been around since 1989. And, of course their sound is traditional metal with soaring vocals, though admittedly they are a little heavier than a lot of this stuff. Some of the riffing has a thrashy feel (see "Doorway to Survive"), the leads are melodic, they tend to keep the tempos moderately fast with some catchy and memorable choruses, etc. Imagine Judas Priest meets Iced Earth with "happier" (i.e. fist banging sing-along) choruses or something. Now and then there are some chunkier modern rhythms, but the old school influences are worn proudly, and rightfully so. I totally love some of the choruses, notably the sweet (and moderately involved) melodic riffing and emphatic singing in "The Leading", but I must admit that a lot of the songs rely too heavily on great choruses that aren't backed up by solid verses, etc. With many songs running more than five minutes they can bulk it up a bit much as well, since an hour is a bit much of this stuff to take in one sitting. Especially tedious are some of the slower tracks like "Fading", which still have their moments, but drag on without much excitement. Of course, what would a power metal CD be without something fancy, in this case the 18-minute "Trilogy of Lust", made up of three songs - "Shiva's Tears", "Fornever", and "Soul Temptation". Oddly they're the three worst songs on the record, and were they not a part of it, it would run a more succinct 40 minutes or so, which would've been more efficient for sure. The guitars are nice and heavy, much more so than most of these bands, and the keyboards are thankfully mixed in fairly well, only occasionally fighting with the guitars. The drums sound unnatural but do work in the context of the mixing job, and the vocals are pretty good, though the bass could stand out more. But whatever, I don't mind the production. I'm not into the layout at all. The artwork is well done, and the colors are consistent throughout, but the subject matter of the art is stupid even by power metal terms. A winged woman with inhumanly huge breasts floating out of genie bottle with a knife in her hand? No thanks. There are also tons of posed band photos, and the goofy Asian looking fonts are not only bad for legibility, they just make no sense!? I won't bother getting into the lyrics because all of the forced rhyming makes things a bit dumbed down and very uninteresting, so... do the math. This is good for what it is, though. I've heard better from the genre, but not only am I hearing less power metal these days, most of what I hear sucks, so... I can definitely deal with this disc. (6/10)
Running time - 57:44, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Doorway to Survive, The Leading, Rising]
Metal Blade Records - http://www.metalblade.com

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