I am not sure of the complete history of this band, but I do know that they were formed in Hamm in Germany back in 1982 and it only took 15 years before they released their debut EP. They broke up at some point after that, but started getting back together in 2003, and by the time they self-released their debut album in 2009 drummer Christoph Kock was the sole person who had not been in the band previously. Bassist Volker Scholz quit the band in 2010 and was replaced by Dominik Welge, and now they have released their debut album through a label, and mighty fine it is too. Apparently they started life on a diet of Helloween, Exodus and Maiden, but now it appears that American power metal is the flavour of the day.
This is classic Power/Prog Metal with high and powerful vocals, bringing together both American and German influences to create something that sounds as if Helloween have got into bed with the likes of Iced Earth (and latter period Tygers of Pan Tang) and made music together. The vocals have an edge to them that stops them from being too harmonic, and this provides a rougher feel to the overall sound which definitely works. This sounds like the debut album by a young and hungry band, not guys who have been at this on and off for thirty years, so it will be interesting to see how they follow this up.
