First, the guitar tone on this album is horrendous! The word “fuzz” would be a compliment for this guitar tone. It sounds as if Jurgen Thunderson and Chris Caine cranked their amps to 10, put them inside gigantic pillows, buried them under 12 feet of sand, hit record and went to town. It is flat out horrible! And the overall production is very thin, which doesn’t help matters. Technically, though, the band is quite good. The songs flow very well and have an old school thrash feel with a serious leaning towards power metal. There is some great lead work going on. Bassist Chris Larson has a very distinct sound and plays independent of the guitars, he leads—rather than follows—with his own unique structure separate from what the guitarists are playing. It’s not the typical approach and it’s nice to hear something different for a change, it adds a fresh dynamic to the style of music they’re playing.

The vocals are a different story altogether. For starts, like the CD booklet everything is in Russian except, for reasons unknown, the ballad-like bonus track, “Living On The Edge” is sung in English and it sounds as if by a different, better singer. Current singer, Holger Komaroff, is just not the most powerful vocalist around. His vocals are reminiscent of what you would get from a drunkard at a bar, arm cocked at a ninety degree angle, holding a frosty mug of ale and ranting and singing songs about…well, I don’t know because it’s in a language I don’t understand!

At the end of the day I just can’t give this album a great review. At the time of this review this was the band’s sixth full-length release after one demo and two EPs. Since this release the band has released three more albums, two Russian language re-recordings of previous albums and a brand new 2005 release. And with this being the band’s sixth album I would simply expect something better. The songs do go over somewhat well, but there are so many negatives associated with this album it makes it a bit hard to listen to. A better singer, better production and singing in English would do wonders for this band.

I have nothing against bands that sing in their native tongue, but the fact remains that English is somewhat of a universal language, spoken and understood in countless countries across the globe. Singing in a language that is essentially pinpointed in one region of the world limits the band’s global reach. And considering the band made a conscious decision to switch from singing in English to Russian doesn’t make much sense to me. All in all this album is OK at best, given time I would like to think the band could be very good, but with this album they fail to impress me, so I’m skeptical of what this band can do. Hopeful, but skeptical.

written by Ken Wood

Playing time: 54.02