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This is an album of conventional German Power Metal in the general vein of bands like Saxon or Cryonic Temple. This album wants to be awesome, and it is intermittently kickass, but there are too many commercial influences at work here to make me completely happy. This is the third album for The Claymore, despite that I have never heard of them before this.

This band features some killer riffs with a thick, heavy guitar sound that calls to mind Mystic Prophecy or Firewind. Some of the riffs are absolutely first-rate, and others are just filler. Problem is, the band can't always tell the difference, and rides the so-so riffs just as hard as the great ones. The songwriting features a lot of AOR/Hard Rock influence, and just when I think a song is godly, the vocals veer into some Boston-type crap and spoil it. A guest turn from Tim Owens doesn't help matters, but is mercifully short. Vocalist Andy Grundmann is a solid if unexciting singer, with a decent range and enough charisma to carry this, but his vocal melodies are too poppy by half, and that brings this disc down severely. If this band had dark, heavy vocal lines to match the riffs, this would be a much more aggressive and satisfying album. This album is a pretty good pick for German PM fans.