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What the hell happened? Grave Digger were on such a tear with great albums like Excalibur and Rheingold, but then we got the stinky The Last Supper and now this. This latest album by Grave Digger is a bit better, but still far inferior to their best works.

You know it's not good when you have to make yourself listen to an album enough times to review it. Liberty Or Death is not bad, not offensive, but it lacks the punch and spark that used to make this band so cool. Part of it is just the production, which is clean and sharp, but lacks severely in the heaviness department. The guitar sound is cleaned-up and weak, and the whole is a very safe sound. The rest of it is just weak songs. "Highland Tears" kicks up some dust, and "The Terrible One" is actually pretty kickass, but most of the songs have no memorable riffs or hooks, and the choruses on the whole album are weak and don't stick in your head. Also, this album is a lot slower paced, and nothing approaches the full-throttle pleasures of "The Grave Digger" or "Excalibur".

This is not bad, it's just kind of bland, and the feeble production job makes this sound much more like some kind of generic German Power Metal than the balls-out Grave Digger we used to know. I don't hate this, but when I reach for a Grave Digger album, it won't be this one.