This is the follow-up to the excellent debut album from German Metal stalwart Herman Frank. Loyal to None was a great slab of old-fashioned Heavy Metal with the two-pronged attack of Frank on guitars and the awesome Jioti Parchardis on vocals. Parchardis is gone, and so we get a replacement singer in Rick Altzi, who is a fine singer, but a much more generic-sounding hard-rock kind of performer.
The rock influence on this is much more pronounced this time, and it does weaken the album considerably. Where the last album raged, this one rolls. The production is weaker and smoother, with less distinction between the instruments, and the songs as a whole have less identity and are not as catchy. This really throttles back on the metal and is much more like another Firewind/Dream Evil clone album. There's nothing about this that will make you turn it off, but it doesn't get close to the highs of Loyal to None.
