In the city of Chicago, Il, the windy city and loungeplace of the mighty Al Bundy, we find a guitarist/vocalist, Mr. Markus Johansson. Markus is composing, orchestrating and composing and when he’s singing he sounds like James Hetfield! This musician met bassist Johnny Rox and they decided to release an album. Cuz they wanted to. Thus they made some arrangements and Larry Tarnowski (lead guitar, Iced Earth) and Kevin Talley (drums, Six Feet Under, Daath) joined forces. Other than that, these two gents practiced some serious magic, as the following musicians contributed, too. Take a really deep breath!
Gene Hoglan, Brendon Small, Andy LaRocque, Michael Angelo Batio, Roland Grapow, The Heathen, Emil Werstler, Rob Caggiano, Metal Mike Chlasciak, Steve DiGiorgio, Sean Reinert, Jordan Rudess, Steve Smyth, Christian Lasegue, Marco Minnemann… Dude, I need to recount in order to avoid any mistakes at all!
Fast and staccato Metal, galloping and all, double bass drum blasting – what did you expect, they could use all those fantastic drummers and they would let them get away with a simple beat? – featuring songs that will remind you of Metallica being left to jam inside a huge garage. The boys want to speed up, they feel like some Punk thematics, they are into rough riffs and a bit of Pantera and a slice of modern Metal… Songs are being performed awesomely, twin guitars rule (i.e. “Permanent heartbreak”) and the production is the proper one. The album contains sixteen songs, all of them under six minutes, with the exception of “Rise and die”, a song ten minutes long (what?), a song beginning with a frenzy bunch of guitar and keyboard solos, before “atmosphere and the rest” join in.
Instrumental “Scream at the stars” features a rather… Maiden-ish spot, so we are happy to adopt the band! There are also two covers on this album, “Asche zu asche” (originally by Rammstein – maan, that basic riff is actually the one in “Am I evil?”, right?) and “Get up”, originally by Van Halen. Now, regarding this song, they changed the title to “Get it up”, they altered the lyrics, making them all “red” and “juicy” and Heathen’s voice and Hoglan’s exophrenic drumming bind with a completely crazed adaptation of the song. Originally it was tough to play and mania in notes, now it became even more… manic! “Hey, Gene, do you wanna see my penis”? The End!