• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

It's been a while since I've encountered French metallers Invictus; I bought their debut a number of years ago, but to my dismay it seemed they had fallen off the face of the earth. Thankfully, it looks like they have survived, and having severed their ties with former label Limb Music, the quartet are back, shacking up with the ever reliable Escape, with their hotly anticipated – at least by me – sophomore effort, the surprisingly inconsistent Persecution. And do any of you care? Probably not. But I'm going to tell you about it anyway…

For those who have yet to sample Invictus, they play a particularly melodic brand of European Power Metal that teeters on the edge of technicality, with some nice progressive touches and symphonic flourishes hiding inside the endless vacuum of melodies that tracks such as "Kill the Dogs", "The Eclipse of the World" and the anthemic "See You Back" reside within. Apparently this was recorded back in 2005, and it begs the question why didn't it see the light of day before now. Whatever the reason, Persecution is a decent follow up to the extremely listenable Black heart, but despite a notable performance from frontman Frederic Glo, it doesn't quite live up to the band's debut - mainly due to a lack of variation and originality in the songs, which often come across as clumsy and impulsive, something that better bands of this ilk such as Icycore and Dream Child manage to avoid - but nevertheless, Invictus still have what it takes, so lets just hope we see album number three before our leading MPs are found speeding across London in hovercrafts and flying motorcycles.