01. My Heart Cries Out For You 04:44 02. Dark Journey 04:52 03. Land Of Street Survivor 04:17 04. Pay the Price 03:27 05. Destiny’s Call 04:54 06. Evil Masquerade 05:04 07. Running Out Of Time 04:35 08. Spellbound 04:37 09. Only The Strong Will Survive 03:29 10. Epic 04:38

‘Where the Eagles Fly’ and indeed the band responsible, Dark Illusion, inspire a strange conflict within me. I’m almost perfectly evenly divided between two opposing forces, and I really can’t decide which side of the fence to fall on. To that end, I’m going to do something a bit fruity and effectively write two reviews of this album. Each side will make their case, and I’ll leave it down to you, the reader, the civilian jury, to decide who wins. To start with, here’s the case from the prosecution, led by the part of me that’s an angry misanthropic shit of a man.

I don’t want this to turn into a philosophical debate about the nature of creativity and originality, but let’s face it, your classic melodic power metal isn’t a genre steeped in fresh ideas and innovation. Dark Illusion are a perfect example of this. I mean, to start with the first thing you saw up there, all of the songs are just named after the most-repeated line in the song. The album itself is named after a line from the chorus of the first song. They didn’t even have enough inspiration to come up with a couple of extra words. What makes it even worse is that all of said lines are pure cheesy filth as well.
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01. We Are the Undertakers 3:20 02. Halloween 3:43 03. Bless the Beast 3:46 04. Girls Made of Heavy Metal 3:07 05. Louder 2:48 06. Metalwar 3:45 07. Wreck of Society 4:38 08. The Bitch Is Back 3:04 09. Got the Devil in Me 4:23 10. Heavy Metal Man 3:37 11. Pain in the Ass 3:48

There are two distinct flavours of female fronted bands. Firstly are the operatic, symphonic and gothy bands where the purpose of the singer, as well as high pitched warbling, is to float around the front of the stage – making any red blooded men in the crowd dribble.

The second kind are the ones who take the fight right to their male counterparts – with just as much (if not more) confidence, power and attitude. The self styled queen of metal, Doro has been doing this for years, mixing it with the big boys – and more often than not – putting them to shame. But now, it seems she may have to fight to defend her crown at the top of the metal heap.

Hysterica are an all female metal powerhouse. Fronted by lead singer Anni De Vil [oooh you see what she did there?] they play their own brand of sleazy metal with some style. They claim to be inspired by the gods of heavy metal – namely Judas Priest.
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01. My Queen Of Winter 04:14 02. More Than Friends 04:19 03. Oceans Of Regret 06:20 04. Gather The Faithful 03:50 05. Into The Blue 04:25 06. Dawn Of Solace 04:18 07. Thorn In My Side 04:07 08. Morpheus In A Masquerade 06:50 09. Stolen Waters 04:34 10. Elegantly Broken 02:46

Supergroups. They’re a bit of a mixed bag; for every Cavalera Conspiracy or Hellyeah, there’s an Audioslave or a Zwan. Cain’s Offering are the Finnish power-metal supergroup; former Sonata Arctica guitarist Jani Liitmatainen joins forces with Stratovarius vocalist Timo Kotipelto and Wintersun bassist Jukka Koskinen. The lineup is filled out by drummer Jani Hurula and keyboardist Mikko Härkin, who was also briefly in Sonata. Given Timo’s prior commitments with Stratovarius (who released their twelfth album in the summer) they haven’t actually performed live together yet, existing in essence as a studio project. It’s a testament to the ability and professional nature of the band’s members that they don’t allow this to adversely affect them to any great extent, still managing to come out sounding tight and unified on record.

Musically Cain’s Offering generally manage to find just a bit more of an edge than recent offerings from Sonata or Stratovarius, although the symphonic bent of the latter’s music still manages to creep in. I say “creep”, it basically batters the bloody door down. I’m going to attempt to stop the comparisons to the band’s ‘parent’ groups there, however, and judge them on their own merits, although it may prove difficult to review a Finnish power metal album without making reference to some of its most eminent exponents.
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01. Everything Fades to Gray (Instrumental) 03:07 02. Deathaura 07:59 03. The Last Amazing Grays 05:40 04. Flag In The Ground 04:09 05. Breathing 03:55 06. Zeroes 04:24 07. The Dead Skin 06:15 08. Juliet 05:59 09. No Dream Can Heal a Broken Heart 04:33 10. As If the World Wasn’t Ending 03:49 11. The Truth Is out There 05:04 12. Everything Fades to Gray (Full Version) 04:30

I feel I should warn you right from the start, it’s completely impossible for me to write an objective review of a Sonata Arctica album. I’m really, really biased. I absolutely adore this band; they were my first metal band, I was instantly converted courtesy of “The Cage”. I spent about a year trying to learn the keyboard solo from that song, and I formed my first band almost entirely in tribute to the song ‘Fullmoon’. Going to see them live was like a religious experience, and their DVD ‘For the Sake of Revenge’ is like some kind of musical pornography to me. I only tell you all of this so that you won’t take it lightly when I say that their new album, ‘The Days of Grays’, is absolutely fucking dreadful.

To be fair, things have changed a bit in the world of Sonata. Founding guitarist Jani Liitmatainen was sacked on the tour for previous album ‘Unia’ when it emerged that he was in trouble with the Finnish authorities for not turning up for national service, and replaced by Elias Viljanen. Singer Tony Kakko has stated in interviews (including one with Ragnarok Radio…) that if the band didn’t change something in their music, in the way they did things, they would have broken up. This was ominous enough, but then keyboard player Henrik Klingenberg came out saying that the new album would “definitely not [be] a back-to-the-roots album with fast power metal”. Which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, being as I feel Sonata are at their best when playing fast power metal; to my mind, the two are one and the same, basically synonymous. You do have to salute them, to an extent, for having the bravery to make a change; many bands are happy to just keep on churning out the same songs album after album, without ever trying to evolve or do something different. So yeah, it’s good in a way that Sonata have tried to mix things up a bit, but at the same time I really wish they’d changed into something that’s actually good.
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01. Prelude for Vendetta 1:26 02. Euphoric Dream 5:02 03. Greed & Vanity 4:16 04. Like Warriors 4:44 05. Autumn Leaves 4:06 06. Feared by Dawn 4:53 07. Lord (of This Kingdom) 5:00 08. New Sin 5:27 09. Dark Emotions 5:16 10. Fading Away 3:59 11. Legacy of Hate Pt.3 14:06 12. Gates of Tomorrow 5:16

It’s a tough life being the power metal guy at Ragnarok: being forced to listen to cheesy songs about dragons and waving your sword in the wind. [Glares at Manowar before feeling intimidated and running away] Fortunately, every so often I come across something which puts a big cheesy grin on my face.

Vendetta is the fourth studio album from Finnish six-piece Celesty. It kicks off with the power metal staple: the orchestral intro. This is a wonderfully dark and powerful introduction which gives me the same tingling feeling as The Ecstasy Of Gold at the beginning of Metallica’s S&M. It leads seamlessly into Euphoric Dream: a blasting track which is a statement of intent as well as a stonkingly fast tune with a crushing rhythm section, slick lead guitar and keyboard work harmonising with the orchestra and choir as well as the excellent singing of frontman and vocalist Antti Railio.
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