Band:
Ralf Scheepers: Lead & Backing Vocals; Acoustic Guitar; Keyboards; FX Sounds
Tim “Ripper” Owens: Lead Vocals on “Remission of Sin”
Magnus Karlsson: Lead Guitars; Guitars; Banjo; Accordion; Keyboards
Sander Gommans: Lead Guitar, Guitars
Mike Chlasciak, Alex Beyrodt; Kai Hansen; Victor Smolski: Lead Guitars
Mat Sinner: Bass, Keyboards
Snowy Shaw: Drums
Discography:
Debut
Guests:
Info
Released 18/2-2011
Reviewed 26/1-2011
Links:
primalfear.de
myspace
frontiers
The cover and all is good, now what colour to put on the selected words which is to be the only colour in this review even, well the video will also have some colour of course. Speaking of colours and stuff, this album has a playing time of about 52 minutes and holds twelve tracks of which two are covers, one is of Ralf’s first band Tyran’ Pace the other one is a Judas Priest cover called Before the Dawn. Saints of Rock is the Tyran’ Pace cover.
Musically the striking thing about this album is the vocal parts, Ralf’s characteristic high pitched singing style takes a lot of place on this album. The musical style of the thing is quite varied from the power metal tunes we all know from Primal Fear to more melodic stuff like ballads and similar things. The production is clean and the album is not overly heavy and mainly mid paced. You could say that they sound a bit like a mix of Primal Fear and some melodic rock band.
When looking into the songs I cannot help but wondering if Ralf hasn’t been listening a lot to Vengeance as the song Cyberfreak has very much in common with Vengeance’s myspace freak, the style of the song and tempo is quite similar but the difference is in the vocal styles, but they are quite similar, maybe Ralf is a fan.
On another one of the tracks, Remission of Sin Ralf sings duet with Tim “Ripper” Owens who is mostly known for his time with Judas Priest and the surprise of them picking him before Ralf. Speaking of prominent musicians helping Ralf out, Victor Smilski known from Rage, Kai Hansen of Gamma Ray and most of Primal Fear are some of those who help on the musical side.
Of the tracks I find that I mostly like the one that goes under the name Saints of Rock which is a modernised cover of Ralf’s old band Tyran’ Pace and it is a great track with a really good chorus and a sound that makes you want to hear it over and over. Other tracks to mention are the ones I mentioned before, Cyberfreak and Remission of Sin which are all really good track. The fact is that the record has very good tracks all the way through.
I think that the 52 minutes the record lasts is quite easy to live with as the variation amongst the songs and the quality of the record makes the length of the record a little less important.
The record feels a lot aimed at those who enjoy Primal Fear but aim for a little more complex and a little more variation but also towards a new audience who has not heard Primal Fear and I think both of these groups will get what they want, the changes are not that radical at first glance but when you start digging into it you find that it is really more than you think at first.
I am impressed with this album, it has a good variety, great vocals and some really good tracks, I think they should incorporate some of what they have done on this album on Primal Fear’s next album, but we’ll see about that when it arrives, in the meantime I think this album will be a more than adequate substitute.
If the wait for the next album by Primal Fear gets too long, this record will be just perfect, it is not Primal Fear but similar enough but with more, I think this is a really good album.
HHHHHHH
