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I loved Battle Beast's first album, Steel, which put the power into power metal while being catchy and fun as hell. One of those albums you just listened to on repeat. My interest started to fade with the second album which was already winding down the "power" in favour of more accessible—but still fun—songs. I kind of lost track after that. So here we are with a new one and, damn, this is really radio-friendly watered-down metal. Noora Louhimo doesn't have the incredible voice that Nitte Valo (who only sang on Steel) has, but she certainly knows how to sing and really nails the vocal melodies here. Sure, it's not particularly "metal" in terms of vocal style, but the girl can sing.

The music is very much in the same vein as the vocals: very accessible, most of the time borderline metal and something I'd associate more with some of the best hard rock bands of the mid to late '80s. It's good, pop-ish, and more prone to induce dancing than headbanging. It can get pop enough to become annoying at times and I found the latest album from Beast in Black (you know it had to be mentioned somewhere in here) to be harder on the edges and more metallic. There's no denying that this is good music and well played and for that I can't trash it like some people did, but this is an album bound to appeal more to the pop/rock crowd (those that like good music anyway) than those who like their metal solid. We'll always have Steel.