Surely Brainstorm are a true example of a Metal band that found a style, pushed it to its ultimate and stuck with it, accumulating and keeping fans with every album. On the menu is always heavy, intense powerful Metal every time and it’s why their fans love them. Utilizing a stable line-up since 1999 (OK, if we’re being picky there has been a bass player change in 2007, but their overall sound and attitude has remained completely consistent), Brainstorm are both a way into Heavy/Power Metal as well as a bench mark. As a unit they have a sound that is instantly identifiable as Brainstorm – total professionalism, talent and experience, every album, every time.
So that said, we’ll just leave the review there then shall we? Of course not, let’s get straight into it…just like Brainstorm do with album opener “Midnight Ghost”. No messing around, whipped up by a frenzy of double-kick drums, the bass joins the fray with driving, heavy guitar and within 30 seconds of the album commencing the instantly recognisable vocals of Andy B. Franck steer the band into the next compelling Brainstorm instalment. Yes, ‘Devil’s Eye’ certainly sets the scene and as is Brainstorm’s style, the foot isn’t really taken off the gas until the mellower, thoughtful album closer ‘The Path’…well…takes the foot off the gas a little.
Between those two musical book-ends the band stride around their repertoire with the conviction and confidence that all Brainstorm fans have come to expect and new fans are in awe of. The tempos shift and change, but that unrelenting power and presence that Brainstorm have never abates. Tracks like ‘Revealing The Darkness’, ‘Four Blessings’ and ‘When Pain Becomes Real’ will try to seduce you with catchy vocal hooks and memorable choruses, others like that aforementioned opener, ‘Haunting Voices’ or ‘The Pyre’ may attempt to pummel you into submission with sublime guitar-work, a speed-driven attitude or sheer bloody-mindedness, but if you like your Power Metal heavy, urgent, professional and intelligent, Brainstorm have the tools to win you over.
‘Jeanne Boulier (1764)’, finds the band in an epic, storytelling mood that really plays with light and shade, and yes, the aforementioned ‘The Path’ certainly finds the band in a reflective refrain, but both tracks are knitted together in that inimitable Brainstorm style that brings them into line with the rest of the album, just slightly pushing the boundaries a little more each time. And really there is very little more that can be said. If you are already a fan of this band then yet again they deliver…but then you always knew they would. You can rely on Brainstorm and long may that continue.
(8/10 Andy Barker)
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