A Hero For The World is a hugely theatrical musical project in the Tobias Sammett/Avantasia tradition spearheaded by to Scandinavian musicians, Jonas Kaasgaard and David Sivelind. Between them – and, naturally, with a helping hand from a few friends – they’ve created an eponymously titled epic is as big in intent as it is in name. This particular project plows deep into the power metal/battle metal niche and presents ten tunes with a maximum old-school metallic intensity.
Tag Archives: scandinavian
BLOODLIGHTS – Stand Or Die
Coming almost ten years after Gluecifer’s swansong ‘Automatic Thrill’, this third album from guitarist Captain Poon’s Bloodlights is a record which could match his previous outfit’s claim to be the kings of rock. Not in a stadium filling, household name way, you understand; more in a bringing it back to the sweaty clubs sense. Far rougher around the edges than Gluecifer in their later days, Bloodlights are ugly, mean and fully charged.
DIAMOND DAWN – Overdrive
Sometimes it feels as if half of Sweden were raised on Journey and Survivor and in AOR terms have chosen to keep the dream alive (to borrow a phrase from an old Now & Then Records sampler) with their own punchy melodic rock bands. For those who’ve enjoyed the melodic rock and AOR over several decades, quite understandably, many of these bands have felt somewhat “second division” (and most of those in turn have seemingly signed to Escape Music). There have, however, been a couple of bands whose early works could stand proudly against releases from AOR’s eighties heyday. Both Work Of Art and Wigelius have wowed genre buffs with their near perfect records between 2010 and 2012; joining them in the early part of 2013 is Gothenberg’s Diamond Dawn, whose debut release ‘Overdrive’ is rather splendid.
SILENT CALL – Greed
Sometimes when a label which chiefly deals with AOR and melodic acts releases something they term “progressive metal”, it’s not usually progressive metal as such. It’s more likely to be a bunch of Yngwie Malmsteen enthusiasts/ex-collaboators churning out similar neo-classical work, but delivered with a slightly bigger punch (see Artension and Ring of Fire for starters). With Silent Call, this is not the case. ‘Greed’ is their second release and frankly, it’s a monster. Throughout the album, each member of the band gives their all, but the real stars are Andi Kravljaca (ex-Seventh Wonder) on vocals and guitarist Daniel Ekholm.