Listening to this latest offering from Sinbreed is like being in a Power Metal wind tunnel! A relentless, galloping double-kick onslaught that when turned up loud feels like it’s blowing your hair back a-la Gromit’s ears. One after another, like a jack hammer with melody and choruses. Turn it up louder…oh yes, feel it through the floor…this is hard to dislike…And I do not dislike this at all!
It just ticks all my boxes. I like Power Metal to be fast, energetic and heavy – Sinbreed deliver. With a vocalist in the mid-range style of Andi Deris, sometimes it’s like all of Helloween’s heaviest songs on one album (Check out ‘Leaving The Road’ for a great example). Couple that with a classic Blind Guardian attitude and a stunningly powerful and clear production and it’s never going to disappoint fans of the genre. The aforementioned double-kick drums pound (that’s Frederik Ehmke, Blind Guardian’s current drummer since 2005 by the way) underneath classic lead riffs and galloping rhythm guitar and bass, so the vocals need to be strong…and they are. Just the right amount of gravel and melody, with plenty of catchy hooks and memorable choruses, delivered with utter conviction. That guitar has to be mentioned again though, because for this, their second album, Sinbreed have managed to coax founding Blind Guardian guitarist Marcus Siepen to be in their ranks full-time (you don’t manage that if your band’s shite!!) and it really shows! The fantastic little twin guitar parts that I always loved about early Blind Guardian are scattered lavishly all over this excellent album, adding that little bit extra, that usually forgotten detail, that sparkle really.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so impressed by a full-on Power Metal album. If it’s not the riffs, it’s the enormous drums (they unsurprisingly have that manic, early Blind Guardian feel as I guess you would expect/hope from Thomen Stauch’s replacement), and if it’s not the lead-work, it’s the great vocal lines and delivery. Even the bass is interesting when you listen for it! Opener ‘Bleed’ is a good example of all Sinbreed’s elements in one (hence they shot a vid for it and opened the album with it!), it has all the aforementioned traits in spades, but to be fair there isn’t a weak track on “Shadows”. There is something to hook you into every track…but I reckon ‘London Moon’ just edges the album’s catchiest chorus award (though that does a dis-service to ‘Leaving the Road’, ‘Reborn’, ‘Black Death’…aw hell, ALL of them!) reminding me as it does of Metalium at their best. The unrelenting power-surge drives throughout…I tell a lie, there is a rather nice 40 second acoustic guitar intro to the epic closing track ‘Broken Wings’, but this is soon eclipsed in a “Bollocks to this – let’s ROCK” drum flourish and we’re off again!
If you like Iron Savior, Persuader, Savage Circus, Pathosray, as well as the aforementioned Metalium, Helloween and classic Blind Guardian then don’t hesitate – this is the album for you! It has everything you could want from a heads-down Power Metal album. This is how to do Power Metal! This is the feeling I had when I first heard so many great German Power Metal bands…Helloween, Blind Guardian, Scanner (yes, Scanner! “Hypertrace”??? Come On!), and I’m unsurprised to notice that Sinbreed are yet another German band continuing their country’s impressive pedigree. Power Metal Über Alles? It seems so…
(9/10 Andy Barker)
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