A Rise to Power

I was first attracted to this band by the album artwork. What can I say? It is amazing, and definitely rivals that of Iron Maiden and Manowar. The cover also had a sticker that boasted “Best Aussie Power Metal!” so I thought, “What the hell?” and decided to buy it and give the band a try.

I must admit, this album was definitely not a disappointment. Best Australian power metal band? Hmm…well… it’s a definite candidate.

The production of this album is flawless. The vocals are nice and clean, drums pounding enthusiastically, adding even more power to the great guitar riffs riffs. The guitarplaying on this album is damn near perfect. The riffs are fresh and original, and the solos and brilliant; guaranteed to keep you headbanging all album long.

The whole album is filled with kickass songs, with no fillers. This is the best kind of music: heavy metal WITH BALLS. Pounding out nonstop, all the songs sound different, adding a lot of variety to the CD, yet Dungeon manage to make each song great.

The reason I gave this CD an 85 instead of 90+ are the vocals… I did mention they are nice and clean, (like power metal should have, IMHO). But there is something… missing. The voice just doesn’t click for me. It’s a little bit bland; not to the point of being boring, but enough to bring down the quality of the music a bit. A voice like Dickinson’s would have went perfectly with this.

Overall, a great album, and a nice addition to any metal collection, power metal fans especially. Pick it up if you get the chance.

-Marcin C.

From the fantastic artwork to the incredible production to the glorious swathes of metal the band carves out across its one-hour-plus running time, there can be no denying that "A Rise to Power" is unquestionably one of the best examples of Australian metal yet recorded. Guitar fans will absolutely love this; the shredding is almost unbridled in some places and jaw-droppingly unbelievable in tracks like ‘Lost in the Light’, ‘Where Madness Hides’ and the title cut, but never does Dungeon allow histrionic guitar-playing to exist merely as an excuse for a song. Indeed "A Rise to Power" is as good an example of substance over style and restraint over self-indulgence as one is likely to find in the power metal field, so densely populated as it is with bands with too much show and no go. For "A Rise to Power" has songs too, a whole album of them, and so many good ones it’s hard to pick the best. Between the straight-forward gallop of ‘Stormchaser’, the elaborate mini-epics like ‘Netherlife’ and the strikingly un-Dungeonlike thrash metal work-out ‘Traumatised’, this album is one headbanging delight after another that just gets better and better with every listen. No stone has been left unturned in Dungeon’s quest to make an album that could stand alongside the world’s best: immaculate production, breathtaking multi-part vocal harmonies, feverish drumming, awesome songs that are both melodic and heavy and, as noted, loads and loads of brilliant guitar solos! Capping it all off are covers of Maiden’s ‘Wasted Years’ (on the Australian version only) and Queensryche’s ‘Queen of the Reich’ that are executed with the same alarming Dungeon precision as the rest of the album. "A Rise to Power" is, simply, amazing.