Kev Rowland I can remember when I first came across Warlock in the Eighties, and like many others I was captivated by the golden-haired front woman Doro Pesch. Since then I have heard a few of her albums and have always enjoyed them so when I was given access to her new work I was really looking forward to it. I started playing the album but was soon searching for information as I felt that I had heard much of it before so managed to convince myself that this was a compilation, but no it is a ‘new’ release – it’s just that many of the songs seems as if she is going back over old ground. There isn’t a really bad song here, just that a lot of them just appear simply to be quite average which make the gems stand out even more.

“It Still Hurts” is a gentle ballad, where she duets with Lemmy and this is easily the best song on the album. We are all so used to hearing Lemmy blast through the rock ‘n’ roll that it is easy to miss that he has an incredibly emotive voice, a more delicate fractured version of Tom Waits. Lemmy is singing at the top of his range, and Doro reacts so that there is more passion in this four minutes than the rest of the album put together. For me it is one of the best songs I have ever heard and even if the rest of the album was rubbish I would be recommending it on the basis of this song alone. But wait, there’s more. “Grab The Bull (Last Man Standing)” is a rock anthem that is going to get the crowds going, and it is definitely lifted out of the ordinary by some sterling work by guest Gus G.

So is this an essential purchase? No, but if you enjoy Doro then this is something that you can happily get as it doesn’t stray too far from where she has been before. www.nuclearblast.de