Messenger
Captain's Loot

Captain Messenger has been out looting for a while and the loot can be found on this new album that is intended as a treat for the fans who are said to be enjoying their energetic live shows and such. It looks kind of space pirate-like for the one looking at the cover artwork, and the loot is five cover songs from Rainbow, Running Wild, Zed Yago, Helloween and Dio. They are also offering three of their own tracks for the fans just to add to their loot, and the clever thing is that they have selected a little atypical cover songs although some of the material has been released on previous Messenger releases.

Musically it is classic heavy/power metal with all the typical ingredients, distinct choruses, much power, classic riffing and plenty of energy. They have a powerful vocalist and the album offers up a decent variation thanks to being an album with covers from several different bands and that makes it go in somewhat different directions. Good production, it is also short and to the point with a playing time of just over 40 minutes, which is good. We get eight tracks on an album that can be described as a quality production, I think that the fans of the band will recognise them as they offer us music styled in the way they have done before but in a more interesting and focused way than I have heard before from them.

It is a very good album, strong songs and great energy. I like it and think that it may actually be the best album from this band so far, thing is though that it is difficult to point to what it means as it is an album of many covers and not so many of their own songs. There are three of them but I think that the covers are the highlight, especially that they have selected a bit different covers and not the more common biggest hit songs from the bands. But it is not only the cover songs that are good as the other songs works quite well as well, but one might argue that they are a bit weak considering that their biggest musical success lies in the cover songs they make.

All the eight songs on the album are solid and strong songs; second best is the opening track Sign of the Evil Master that is a speedy and catchy song. It is just ahead of the Running Wild cover Port Royal that is another speedy catchy song and it is in that department they are best: simple, fast and powerful metal songs – this is clearly shown in the album’s real highlight, Dr. Stein once made by Helloween and written by Michael Weikath. That track is also the best track ever by Messenger – that is another problem for them, having a cover as their best work and not being able to write something of their own that stand out. I just wonder why they didn’t end with the doctor instead of a tired cover of Don’t Talk to Strangers – just sayin’.

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