Enslaved

Steel Attack’s three first albums is really nothing but un-originality, just feeling like any amateurish power metal band out there, but then with just a change of vocalist they turned into much a much more mature band. “Enslaved” is a great album without that cheesy and poppy which can so often be found in power metal. The first I reflected on after hearing the album was that how awesome the unknown vocalist Ronny Hemlin is. He has a fairly “own” voice which suits the music very well, and is both a screamer as well as a mid-ranged vocalist. And he did brought cooler lyrics than any of the other SA-vocalist ever done. Being most about religion and how “enslaved” the believers are, not like the earlier themes of dragons, steel & war etc. Actually, I think that they probably wouldn’t want to call themselves STEEL ATTACK anymore, must be one of the worst band names ever.

There are some really awesome songs found on this CD, the fast opener “Gates Of Heaven” with it’s cool riffs and verses, and a nice chorus. The second track “Out of the Flames”, heavy shit. Real heavy-metal riff in mid-tempo in the verses and a moderately fast chorus. Then the third song, possibly the best on the album, ripping “Forsaken”. Really cool verses, calm prechorus, and awesome chorus where Hemlin really shows how great vocalist he is. This song also have a great interlude at about 3:50. The next one, “Bless My Sins” is a heavy song with a fairly melodic chorus, weakest part of the song. Everything else is good, the solo on this on is very good. The title track “Enslaved” is a moderately fast song with yet another melodic chorus, though better than Bless My Sins-chorus, and this songs has the best solo on the album, awesome it is. These mentioned songs are the great ones. We also have two “OK” songs, these being “Immortal Hate” and “Son of a thousand Souls”. The first one being a fairly fast one, but does only have good verses. The later one is a changing fast-to-slow song. Fast intro, slow verses, heavy-pre chorus and chorus. The verses are really boring, and the only reason which makes the song only “OK”. And the last three (two if you don’t have the Digipack-version) is nothing special, fillers in other words. Un-interesting songs that feels like you’ve heard before.

So, one can say about this album that it’s a high quality power metal album, but has some fillers. What I also would like to mention is the albums production, which sounds really tight and heavy, when it’s slower music. In the fast parts it sounds kind of messy and the heaviness seems to be lost, maybe a thing to work on. And also the cover and logo, both kind of suck and none of them is cool. But the music is most important, and this is still a album that I recommend YOU to buy if you’re into this genre and if you’re tired of all war, steel, metal & dragons in the night-lyrics. And I can easy say that this is probably the best album that has ever been released on Arise Records.

Best songs: Gates Of Heaven, Out of the Flames, Forsaken