WIZARD - THOR

Wizard is a German power metal band, formed in 1989 by the drummer Soren van Heek and often called as "Germany’s answer to Manowar".With such a description what more could anyone expect, than lyrics  about battles, metal, war, steel and such subjects? In their latest concept release "Thor", they are trying to return to their previous glorious days, after a release (Goochan) which left their fans unhappy. With two guitarists, for the first time, they seem to succeed in a way of accomplishing that. Epic choruses,heavy riffs and easy to follow melodic lines make "Thor" a pleasant-to-hear work result. If you want a description of their sound,I would say typical German-school under a strong Manowar influence. In this cd you will find only average to good moments, no masterpieces but no boring/bad songs. At this point I would like to mention the very good job made by the vocalist, who sometimes sounds aggressive and sometimes epic, with great success at both,indeed.Highlights of "Thor" would be "Midgard’s Guardian" with an introduction bringing in mind Rage and leading to a very melodic composition, "Serpent’s Venom" a slower tempo song with an epic refrain sticking in your brain immediately and a great performance by their lead singer, "Utgard (The Beginning)" a song starting with acoustic guitars,moving on with double solo ones and ending with great epical vocal lines and finally"The Visitor" a "groovy" track with another great chorus dominating (I could name it as my favourite one). To sum things up, even if I think that their music is the exact opposite, of what we call innovative and it tends to be extremely predictable, I enjoyed the whole mood. I would definitely recommend it to everybody who is into that style of music and of course to fans of early Wizard’s works.
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\r\nJohny "L.O.V.E. Machine" Litinakis\r\n