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What the fuck happened? "Welcome to the Other Side", "Unity" and "Soundchaser" were amongst my favorite Power Metal albums, and even 2006's rather lackluster effort "Speak of the Dead" had a few excellent tracks shining through the bland nature of some of the dreck on it. In the same nature of several of their aging contemporaries, though, Rage are slowly decaying to dust, and their sound is becoming less genre-defining and powerful, as "Carved in Stone" is a pale shadow of everything I liked about this band.

If you were to hear this album with no prior knowledge of any Rage albums, then you might like it better than I do. On the surface it's still the same band I love, as the lineup hasn't changed - save for a new drummer - and the style of music is still the same gritty, ballsy flavor of Power Metal that they've always played, but upon comparing this one to "Unity", you start to realize exactly how weak and neutered this new album really is. Peavy's vocal melodies are not very strong here, never sticking in your head the way they did on previous albums, and he never lets loose and bellows here either. The riff construction is terribly sloppy and lackluster this time around, and the choruses are as bland as they can possibly get. While the guitar leads are sometimes stirring, the final product is one of shocking mediocrity. Rage have been on a steady decline for a while now, but at least "Soundchaser" had some really great songwriting and flowed excellently as a whole. At least "Speak of the Dead" had a handful of tracks that could still kick your ass around the room. This? This has nothing.