Holy Hell

I've been reading news about Rob Rock for a while, but never actually listened to any of his material before. It didn't help that I always read "Bob Rock" at first. :) So here comes this new album, and even though AFM's paranoia resulted in a promo filled with shortened songs, I actually like this enough for that stupid move not to affect the outcome of the review. Either that or I'm just a damn nice guy. hehehe

It's a bit difficult to throw the band into a specific genre. The most prominent sound is power metal, but with a very strong heavy metal influence that gives it a rawer edge than you would expect from your run-of-the-mill power metal album. This is pretty easy listening in that it is very catchy and very melodic, but the powerful and often hard-edged guitar work that prevents this from turning into some fairy metal. Along with the guitar work, Rob's vocals are one of the highlights of the album - clean, high pitched and quite versatile, he ends up doing a damn fine job on just every song, from the ballad "I'll Be Waiting For You" to such hard rockers as "Holy Hell", "Lion of Judah" and "Slayer of Souls". There isn't one weak track on the entire album, although some people might be turned off at first by the ballad - this one took several listens to grow on me.

This is a very strong heavy/power metal album that should please most fans of the genre, as long as one can stomach some of the cheesier cuts. I don't know if the band's previous material is this strong, but for now this will do. :) I'll actually try to get the full version of the album because the effect of the shortened songs is very annoying. With that said, I wouldn't be surprised if this album ended up in some top 10 lists for this year.