SilentScream213 By this point, Virgin Steele had acquired a fantastic sound all their own, mixing operatic traditional Heavy Metal with more aggressive USPM and true Power Metal. This was another in a string of concept albums, this time focusing on the Oresteia. I will say, of all the epic Greek myth to focus on, they really chose… one of the least epic. The preceding Illiad would have been much more interesting and action packed, fitting the music style better. The Oresteia is essentially a soap opera.

The good songs here sit among the band’s best. Opener “Kingdom of the Fearless” is a great way to kick off the story, a lengthy epic filled with power and glory. “Child of Desolation” is my personal favorite, showcasing the band’s knack for cheesy, beautiful ballads driven by melody and emotion. The Fire God borders on Thrash Metal, as one of the most aggressive songs they’ve done. But, not all the songs are this good.

The big issue here is how obscenely bloated it is. I mean… the amount of filler/interlude tracks outnumber the regular ones! And many of them approach or even exceed the 2 minute mark as well. It cannot be ignored. Granted, some of these are rather decent, but it’s waaay too much. Virgin Steele kept their previous concept albums a bit more under control, with Invictus definitely dancing on the line with its interludes, but this one is ridiculous.

It's got amazing tracks like their other concept albums, but this one suffers a lot in terms of front to back listenability. Also, the concept is not very fitting for a Power Metal album. They picked one of the few stories in Greek myth with zero action, zero fantasy, zero adventure… I feel this is overrated, great moments though it has.

Kev Rowland Riot were a band who appeared in many ways to get more praise in the UK than they did in their home of New York, with both ‘Rock City’ and ‘Narita’ gaining lots of praise during the NWOBHM era although their sound was quite different. It was always Mark Reale’s band, and after his death in 2012 the question was whether or not to continue, but continue they did with a slight change to the name, and this is the third release with the same line-up of Todd Michael Hall (vocals), Nick Lee (guitars), Mike Flyntz (guitars), Don Van Stavern (bass), and Frank Gilchriest (drums). There may not be any original members left but both Stavern and Flyntz originally joined in the Eighties while Gilchrist was there more than 20 years ago, so while none played on the classics, they have every right to use the name.

This is American commercial metal with high vocals, some harmonies, all played in a style where the bottom end seems almost transparent and it all feels very Eighties, as if Bon Jovi had never really gone away. But you know what? I always enjoyed this style of music and felt the likes of Poison, WASP and the rest had far more musical chops than they were often given credit for, and these guys can trace their beginnings back to 1975 and a debut in 1977. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Riot deserved to be huge, and the reason that never happened was out of their control. In fact, Classic Rock wrote a great piece on them a few years ago which started with “In the late 70s, Riot were the Great White Hopes of American rock. But that was before the public ignored them, their label disowned them, and their singer quit. And then things got really bad…”.

Given what they have been through, there is no way Riot (V) should be here all those years later producing something which is a modern American hard rock/metal classic which brings back the days when they were young and hopeful, but they have. This is a superb release which made me smile the first time I played it, the grin getting wider with each song. This could well be their best release since ‘Fire Down Under’ more than 40 years ago, and that is saying something. Essential.

Warthur This was recorded at the same sessions that yielded Savatage's debut album, Sirens, which in practice means it's much of a piece with it (especially given the fairly tight schedule they were on). It's pretty engaging, but as with Sirens we don't really get that much of what would make Savatage truly stand out coming through here; they're still rooted in NWOBHM-ish trad metal, and the power metal and progressive elements that would eventually be hallmarks of their sound are mere whispers on the wind at this stage. Not bad, but anyone with a decent range of early 1980s metal in their collection has already heard plenty of stuff like this.

Warthur It's probably fair to say that Savatage hadn't quite developed the sound they are known for - power metal with progressive sensibilities - at the time they recorded their debut album. This and the Dungeons Are Calling EP were recorded in the same sessions, the band having been given an opportunity to get a few precious days of studio time in and deciding to get as much material on tape as they could without half-assing things to an unacceptable extent.

What you get here is fairly straightforward trad metal, with some notes of the fantastical and perhaps a pinch of NWOBHM influence to add spice. It's... fine. Really, it's not bad. The problem is that it rarely if ever rises above that standard; if you've heard much traditional heavy metal, you've heard a lot of stuff that sounds like this, and can probably name a dozen albums which give you more pleasure than this one at that - some of those may even be by Savatage.

In short, this is comprehensively OK-to-good, but there's little sign of what Savatage would become given time.

UMUR "Winner/Looser" is the second full-length studio album by US, Colorado based power/heavy metal act Titan Force. The album was released through the small German label U.S. Metal Records in 1991. It´s the successor to the eponymously titled debut album from 1989. Titan Force were formed in 1983 by the three Flores brothers Mario (guitars), John (bass), and Stefan (drums) under the Titan monicker but changed their name to the current one in 1987. At that point the Flores brothers had added guitarist/keyboard player Bill Richardson and former Jag Panzer lead vocalist Harry Conklin to the ranks. The band released no less than five demo tapes from 1985-1989 before being signed to the U.S. Metal Records label for the release of the debut album.

The lineup is unchanged since the debut album, but the harmony wouldn´t last for long, as U.S. Metal Records lost patience with Titan Force as a consequence of poor album sales, and cancelled the recording contract. Titan Force did subsequently manage a short tour in Germany with Anvil, and recorded a demo in 1994, which they shipped to labels in hopes that someone would be interested, but unfortunately no label showed interest and when lead vocalist Harry Conklin decided to jump ship and return to his former band Jag Panzer, Titan Force faced too many problems to continue full steam. When tragedy struck in 1998 with the suicide of guitarist/keyboard player Bill Richardson, the three Flores brothers disbanded Titan Force.

The material on "Winner/Looser" continues in the melodic US power metal style that Titan Force initiated on their debut album. It´s a slightly more diverse release than the debut album, but also similar in many ways. The music features a hard pounding and clever playing rhythm section, skilled guitar work (both riffs, themes, and solos are quite brilliant), and in front a world class lead vocalist in Harry Conklin. Conklin can sing helium high pitched vocals, but he is just as comfortable singing in lower registers (although he mainly sings really high pitched on this release). His performance in "Winner/Looser" is commanding, passionate, and quite frankly jaw-dropping superior.

Stylistically the material on the album inhabits a similar melodic US power metal space as late 80s/early 90s releases by artists like Crimson Glory, Lethal, and Mystic Force did, and for fans of that type of US power metal (the melodic sort with a touch of progressive metal), "Winner/Looser", and the debut album by Titan Force, are more or less mandatory listening material. It´s beyond me how they managed to fly so low under the radar, that they didn´t at least achive some sort of breakthrough, but maybe the time and place just weren´t right. There are of course thousands of similar stories throughout music history, but that doesn´t make this one any less sad. At least Titan Force are retrospectively recognised as one of the sub-top melodic US power metal artists from the era. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Kingcrimsonprog Live In Ancient Kourion is a live concert Blu-Ray from the American Power Metal band Iced Earth. It was filmed at the ancient Kourion Theater in Limasol, Cyprus (a site with a 6,000-year history according to the liner notes) in 2012, in support of the Dystopia album. The line up features Jon Schaffer, Brent Smedley, Troy Steele, Luke Appleton and then-new singer Stu Block.

The career-spanning set contains 27 songs from all eras of the band’s history, in a concert that lasts around 2 hours and 35 minutes. Its pretty great value for money in that regard.

The performance is very strong indeed, with all band members putting down solid performances with no weak links. Stu capably handles the material of previous singers Matt Barlow and Tim Ripper Owens in a suitable but distinctive way. He fits the band perfectly and is immensely talented. Elsewhere; the dual guitar lines and solos are sublime and the drumming is powerful and rock-solid. If you like Iced Earth then this is a really strong and representative example of what they are all about.

Highlights include strong performances of ‘Burning Times,’ ‘Wolf,’ ‘Declaration Day,’ ‘Days Of Rage’ and ‘Dantes Inferno.’ ‘Boiling Point’ and ‘Damien’ are also especially energetic and exciting here – if you were wondering if you’d enjoy this release, then I suggest trying those two tracks out.

The stage design and the simple, tasteful lightshow in conjunction with the well-integrated use of smoke and pyro perfectly complements the band’s meaty, honest approach to Metal music. The crowd get into it and both clap and sing along on many occasions. Sometimes not only singing the words but also the guitar melodies. The concert really shows a confident band delivering their best to an appreciative crowd.

The camerawork and editing are absolutely solid, the audio recording quality and live mix are spot-on and overall this is a very strong release on both the audio and visual fronts. Sometimes you’ll get a DVD with way too many flashy transitions and cheesy editing choices, or the bass guitar missing from the mix, but a lot of care has obviously gone into making this a tasteful and musician-friendly affair. Admittedly I have seen concert Blu-Rays with better picture quality (Sabaton, Gamma Ray, Stratovarius and Hammerfall spring to mind) and here it can be a tiny bit grainy, soft-focus or washed out at times depending on the lighting conditions in the venue at the time however just because better examples exist, it doesn’t mean the picture here is anything to complain about.

In terms of bonus features there are photo galleries (4 minutes of very high resolution photos of the band and the beautiful Cypriot landscape), a 9-minute world tour story (breaking down the logistics involved such as how many guitar picks and flights the band went through) which mixes photos and graphics with interview footage, as well as the 31-minute Documentary feature “The Making Of Live At Ancient Kourion.”

The version I got comes with a slipcase in a digibook-style box which contains booklet featuring photos, credits and liner notes from bandleader Jon Shaffer. It houses the Blu-Ray version, DVD version and CD version of the concert for maximum flexibility.

The Blu-Ray specs are as follows: Region 0, Format 16:9, Audio comes in a choice of Dolby Digital 2.0 or DTS HD Surround 5.1.

Overall; Live In Ancient Kourion, especially this edition, is a very worthwhile release and I whole-heartedly recommend it to fans of the band, or fans of Traditional Heavy Metal and Power Metal in general.

666sharon666 There's a lot of value for your money in this DVD package. Three full festival appearances are included, two with singer Matt Barlow and one with singer Tim "Ripper" Owens. There's also the seemingly customary documentary and all the band's music videos with the exception of the older Desert Rain back from the Night of the Stormrider era, as well as the advert for the Ten Thousand Strong video and photo slideshows. For the price this seems to retail at (I bought it for just £9.99), this is a very worthwhile package for any Iced Earth fan. The one catch is that it in reality looks more than it is, as both the Barlow fronted shows feature a completely identical setlist. It's still a very good value package to get despite this, but 4 stars is all I feel inclined to award it because of the amount of repetition. Still for the very reasonable price, if you like this band, buy it anyway.

(I originally posted this hastily written review here: http://bit.ly/pafvQh )