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Well well well, you'd have had to have lived the life of a hermit to not know that Earache's babies of 2005 had been hyped to the heavens since their signing, with adverts just about everywhere you looked in the metal press last year, and overtly felating reviews in abundance (or maybe that was just in the U.K?!). However, the word on everyone's lips is…. Are they really as good as everyone seems to think they are?

Well, to be fair, they're pretty shit hot yeah. Sounding hugely like the new born baby of Pantera's 'Cowboys from Hell' and Judas Priest's 'Painkiller', with near perfect carbon copies of early Anselmo vocals hovering and meandering over chunky, chugging KK Downing-like riff-work, in fact, I'd even go so far as to say that a certain Mr Halford would be proud of the emotion filled lungs of vocalist John K. The fact that this is all wrapped up in a thick, warm Andy Sneap production becomes almost an afterthought with the musical brilliance dazzling the listener upon first listen.

So, congratulations all round then? Well, yes and no. For me, they don't quite pull it off as well as many think, mainly for the reason that they don't fully have enough of the songs required to go above and beyond all the hype and into the stratosphere. On the flip side however, this is not to say that they aren't flashes of supreme genius here and there, which help remind you of why you first starting listening to metal in the first place (the fantastic last four part Absolution tracks are a particular highlight, showing the very best of the band's immense songwriting abilities).

It simply seems to me that the odd misplaced riff or disconnected sounding musical section lets the momentum of the album suffer occasionally, but of course this is easily something that can be worked on and perfected over time for future efforts. All in all, a sterling effort for only the band's second effort, and I'd definitely be interested to see which direction they take for the 'difficult' 3rd album.

Oh yeah, they're British too – always a bonus for me!!