There are times when I am listening to an album that I start to question my sanity as to why I’m putting myself through it. But, then there are times when I come across albums like this and it all makes so much sense as I know that if I didn’t write about music for a hobby then I would never have come across this band in the normal course of events. I mean, here is the debut album from a Finnish band on a Finnish label – and that generally isn’t going to get people excited at Metal Hammer, but in this case it should. The band only started playing in 2010, with this line-up finally taking shape two years later when vocalist Taage Laiho joined. They released ‘The Dark Wheel’ EP in 2012 and a single in early 2013 both of which were well-received, but I don’t think anything would have led anyone to imagine that their debut would have been as powerful as this.
I always find press releases interesting, and according to the label these guys have been heavily influenced by a large number of bands, including Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Accept, Dio, Rainbow, Megadeth, Anthrax, Rush, Alice Cooper and King Diamond among others. That is an incredibly diverse list of bands, but I would add Iced Earth into this list as well as here we have a metal band with stacks of melodies and hooks, where the keyboards are used more as a rhythm guitarist to provide emphasis as opposed to pure symphonic, with great vocals to boot. Of all the bands they mention I think that 2013 version of Rainbow combined with Iced Earth would be the best way to describe. Extremely polished and well produced, this is an album that is going to take this band places. If they can reproduce this on a stage then these guys are going to make quite a name for themselves.
www.madhattersden.com
