Stormhammer
Welcome to the End

Welcome to the End, says Stormhammer in the title of their sixth album – the end of what? Well, perhaps the end of life thanks to the fiery breath of a dragon, like on the artwork. And that artwork really really gives a wow-factor to this album, it is very impressive and had the album been just halfway as impressive musically it would have been a very interesting album – now it is only interesting to behold and then it is of course not released on vinyl so they don’t make much use of that artwork.

It is typical power metal with power chords, catchy choruses, silly lyrics and all other things we come to expect from a band who call themselves something like Stormhammer. Unimpressive production, long album that I describe as rather unremarkable with songs that probably play to their flock but doesn’t really give me the sensation of being from a band that actually has something to contribute to the world of music.

I wonder if the title is prophetic, welcome to the end of Stormhammer with this being their last, and very good looking, album. If it were I would not shed a tear for them, they could have done better album, granted because this is the only one I have heard so I should probably not judge the band only based on this album. But if I were I would not be sad to know that it was their final offering. And they call themselves Munich’s number one power metal band on their website, if that is true I would claim that Munich don’t have much to offer when it comes to power metal.

I wouldn’t say this is a poor album, more like an average one and average isn’t very sexy in a world where there are already thousands of similar albums flooding the shelves and digital music libraries. And they don’t even take advantage of the great cover by releasing it in vinyl form as the great cover is the only great thing about this album that only makes me wonder why, what is the point of releasing another totally average power metal album? Wasn’t there enough of them already? Well it probably was but Horst enlightened me that the band sell the album on vinyl through their homepage so the point could be to have a great looking album in your colletion.

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