When it gets near the end, it doesn’t, because this album never seems to end! And I mean that in a good way, of course. Once you first think they’ve finished, you’ll be surprised how many hits still lie ahead! It just keeps going and going and going… And I love every minute of it.
“Final Offering” is not as heavy as the band used to be. There are no fantasy metal tunes such as “Steal Another Fantasy” or fast rockers like “Heat in the Street”. This is more mellow and, well, mature.
So what about their new album and new vocalist? Well, I don’t know. From my point of view, this is very “allright”. No songs stick that much out as great songs, but none is really bad either. It’s quite allright all the way through.
But the major question about this album is still not so much about the quality of the songs. It’s about how the band is holding up now, making their careers first album without legendary Rick Parfitt (1948-2016). With so many years in the band and such a major role of the bands sound, you’d might think it would never work without him. And then you tune in “Backbone” and it sounds so much like Status Quo you almost burst out laughing!
At the center of this project is of course four great vocalists: Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet, Robin McCauley and Doogie White. These are all great singers, so to hear them all together sure is a real fest!
They have the power, the emotion and the energy and this time they strike all the right notes. “Another State of Grace” proves once and for all that they are one of the best providers of classic hard rock out there today. Don’t miss it for the world!
If you are a great fan of old school Stockholm death metal, you won’t probably regret it if you give “Bowels of Earth” a few spins, but I also think you wouldn’t miss that much if you skipped it. I guess it comes down to how much you love Stockholm death, or more precisely how much you love Entombed. So be your own judge on that one!
I have no problem with “Dominion”, it works okay. I can listen to it and dig the music, and some songs could even become future classics; especially “(We Make) Sweden Rock” is a great anthem, and the title track is nice too. But there are no really massive tracks on this one to really take the album higher
Overall, this is quite a standard album in a long line of AOR albums released from label Frontiers and nothing really sticks out about it. But still, I quite like it. The songs are good enough and the overall vibe is nice.
When a new Volbeat album comes out you are quite sure that the fans are gonna praise and the haters are gonna hate. And since there for some reason are a lot of people in both of these categories but not too many in between, I can only give you what I think.
If I’d break it down; I really like the guitar sound in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, the title track is really massive and the piano part in the beginning of “The End of the War to End all Wars” is great. But I still get quite tired by listening to the whole album and in the end it gives me nothing I haven’t heard from Sabaton ten times before.
Some people say that bands should try to make new stuff, break walls and take music forward. And there might be some truth to that. But also, it sure is nice with dependable bands who always give you what you want too.
I mean, this is great. Really great! It’s the best live album I’ve heard in years and years, probably since Halford – Live Insurrection (2001), and I love every single thing about it! An eight star review is just too weak, this must have nine stars! And so it is!
In powerful songs such as “Damned” and “Shadowcult”, the band strikes the exact right notes and I just want to throw myself into the moshpit and bang my head off!
It’s still dead serious, there is nothing funny about heavy metal. At least nothing that should be ironised and joked about. That ruins the whole concept! The whole heavy metal scene is in pieces today. There are very few bands taking it as seriously as they should.
“Zenith” is the bands fifth album, and it takes this maturity one step further, making this a really quite powerful metal album full of energy, melodies, power and variation
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