Blaze Bayley - Promise and Terror

I never denied my admiration for the X-IRON MAIDEN singer (to be honest, we all known him by this title) and his work not only with IRON MAIDEN (X-Factor is a masterpiece!) but also with his solo albums. “Promise and Terror” is their 5th studio release and in my opinion is their greatest album since 2000’s “Silicon Messiah”. There are 2 basic elements that really make this album special. Firstly is the awesome riffing in some of the songs that turn them into Heavy Metal dynamites (listen to “Watching The Night Sky” and “Faceless” and you’ll know exactly what I mean) and secondly the variety in the compositions since the songs themselves are ranging from speed metal thunderbolts to more dark/atmospheric approach (like the stunning “Comfortable in Darkness” ) where Blaze’s singing is more than awesome, taking advantage of the baritone sound of his voice he sends shivers down our spine! The band sounds firm and they are performing pretty good as for the production, it certainly is excellent with the guitars “to the front” just where they supposed to be. About Blaze’s voice, I don’t think that there is much to say, we all know that his voice range is limited (something that many see as a flaw since he replaced Bruce Dickinson, an unfair treat if you ask me. Bruce can’t be replaced by anyone!)so what he does here is using it the way it works for the songs to be performed correctly, with even greater success to the more atmospheric/dark songs due to the character of his voice (he should seriously consider singing in a more Goth approach).
\r\nI recommend this release not only to Blaze Bayley’s fans but also to anyone who’s into good old Heavy Metal.
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\r\nDimitris Karantounias\r\n