Southgate

When I first read about Seventh Avenue in a Christian music catalog they referred Herbie’s vocals as ‘hyper ventilate’ for fans of Scorpions, Sacred Warrior (I do not recall the other bands since I bought this 9 years ago). About the hyper ventilated vocals I must say absolutely YES. Comparisons to Scorpions or even Barren Cross are nothing but total non-culture and non-knowledge of the metal movement and are miles away from the truth.

So, what do we get here? First and foremost we get hyper galloping power metal from start to end. 90% of the songs are fast paced because of the 2 ballads. The production is very good, almost crystal clear and you can taste all the instruments. The speed of the songs is reminiscent of Helloween’s KOT7Ks II in ‘Eagle Fly Free’, ‘March Of Time’, ‘You Always Walk Alone’. Herbie’s vocals are in a way related to Kiske and all those high pitched yet very melodic singers. Sometimes I guess we can say Geoff Tate’s influences can be heard, Fabio Lione can be recalled too although the voice is very different and sometimes very Bruce Dickinson’s raspy voice from FOTD. About the lyrical concept this is 100% old fashioned power metal (in a good way) very fantastic, very ‘’tale’’, elegant and esoteric which you can simply figure out from the cover (even for a christian band).

About the music Helloween’s reminiscent old power metal comes up immediately and Gamma Ray ‘Somewhere Out is Space’ era (thou not the guitar heavy crunch) when trying to describe this. A keyboard intro very soft and mystical set the mood for the entire record. ‘Southgate’ hits your ears and now we say: ‘ok, this is power metal!’ The song lengths 10 min. and it has a relentless riffing and drumming. Herbie’s voice is tracked many times with higher tones which makes it even cooler. We also get killer guitar solo and lots (I mean lots) of double bass drums for never ending excitement. Very melodic guitars going along with the rhythm riffing is also present.

Next to Southgate comes ‘Protection of Fool’ where the vocals are even higher, perfect song flow and now the first problem begins: this song has the same structure as the first one. When you go to ‘Carol’ its repetitive patterns begin to become annoying while not boring at all. ‘Carol’ begins speeding up and then an acoustic part with very high vocals and then again the rhythm guitars begin with interludes of melodic guitars.

I will not detail every song since they are quite alike but I can point some highlights: ‘Storm’ is an instrumental based on classical music (ala Yngwie) and it shreds for 1:20min. The scales are very good handled and he shows off that he actually can play really fast. For me, ‘Big City Sharks’ has the best vocals through and through. The melodic sound of his voice combined with the background voices and the high pitched screams are particularly good in here. ‘Father’ begins very slowly and again Bruce Dickinson’s style is clear here and along with ‘Heart in your hand’ are the ballads in the album. On ‘Father’ some of the drums patterns and guitar riffing during the heavy parts sound like Iced Earth in ‘The Glorious Burden’ if you want my opinion. When you listen to ‘Puppet of the Mighty’ now we have the raspy voice of Andy Deris (oh yeah), just listen to him singing. Of course once the speed appears we now move to the regular power metal singing.

‘Goodbye’ closes and it is very cool in its 8min. length and it is very slowly built too. Not fast as the previous songs but it is not a ballad per se. This is a cool mid tempo song with emotional feeling declining by the end of the song and a very good way to end the album. I hope this helps you understanding the kind of power metal this albums is. Due to the burst of power metal bands and after Nightwish, Gamma Ray and Rhapsody went to stardom in the late 90’s copycat bands took the genre to popularity but again the problem with power metal is that it repeats itself due to the speed and ultra high pitched vocals but this album is a very good piece of the genre showing what this was all about. Mega high speed, excitement, fast riffing, melodic guitar solos, fantastic worlds to explore and high screaming singers. Let’s us pass through the Southgate of musical entertainment.