Stephen
What looks good by the book apparently not always good in reality, and that's the impression I got after listening to this album for a while. Michael Voss has always been my fave singer since his days in Mad Max and Casanova, and Mark Sweeney himself is also a very good one, I know couple of Crystal Ball albums even though not a big fan myself. This ain't a bad album, don't get me wrong, but two wonderful veterans like this, I sure expect things to be better than this.
Problem is, this totally lacks of outstanding hits and suffered with many average chorus, and trying to fly back and forth between melodic heavy metal and European power metal, they isolate themselves from the melodic hard rock circle that's ironically is the realm they really belong. The band of course is trying to try something new, stepping outside the box, but if they really want to prevail in this genre, at least try getting the help from Tobias Sammett or Michael Weikath to support the writing.
'Sirens' and 'The Crow' are two big tracks in the first half. Both are energetic, power metal tunes, with stampeding rhythm and melodic soaring chorus, but 'Dark Horizons' is passable, 'Lost' is slow and doomy, and 'Slam Down The Hammer' has great verse but unfortunately very weak chorus.
'Reptile's Kiss' and 'Ride The Bullet' are more in hard rock territory, both are awesome tracks, probably the strongest part of this album, and the guitar solo is a bliss. 'Wolfony' is a mistake, actually not bad of a power metal track, but it's too damn long, cut it to 5 minutes max and I'll be happy with it.
Apart from all those weaknesses, you can't go wrong with the vocal quality, and in fact, some songs are still listenable and none are totally horrible. It's just that, average songwriting like this is doubtful to make a lasting impact. The production is good, you've heard better, but no big complain in this department.
Bottomline : Okay to have, but not essential.