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This is a side project from members of German thrash band Vulture. When I sampled the music, I found it quite lightweight and almost passed on it, but upon further inspection Iron Shackles turned out to be a nice little slab of upbeat, catchy heavy metal, the "accessible" kind that was commonplace in the early '80s, the kind that gets you to sing along, headbang, tap the foot, play air guitar, whatever. Good luck trying to get songs like "Iron Shackles" and "Wrath of the Sorcerers" out of your head, and the others have some staying power as well. "Hexer (In Dreiteufelsnamen)" is sung in German and the musical style and especially the vocal delivery sound like something that would fit an Aria (Russia) album. There's also a bit of a '70s vibe creeping up on occasion when the band tiptoes into hard rock and heavy rock territory without getting fully across the fence. At 32 minutes, it's on the short side for the genre, but Luzifer make good use of that time.