• New Music Reviews
• |
• Archives
• |
• News
• |
• Submissions
• |
• About
• |
• 
• |
• 

May 2025

• Beholder: In the Temple of the Tyrant
• Art Nation: The Ascendance
• Laurenne/Louhimo: Falling Through Stars
• Rock Out: Let's Call It Rock N Roll
• The Flower Kings: Love
• Maestrick : Espresso Della Vita: Lunare

March 2025

• W.E.T.: Apex
• Alliance: Before Our Eyes
• Ginevra: Beyond Tomorrow
• Phil X & The Drills:
  Pow! Right In The Kisser
• IQ: Dominion
• Heart Line: Falling Heaven
• Gotthard: Stereo Crush
• Defender: Dying To Live
• Streetlight: Night Vision

February 2025

• Robin McAuley: Soulbound
• Perfect Plan: Heart Of A Lion
• Craig Brooks: Desolation Freeway
• Mantric Momentum: Alienized
• Pattern-Seeking Animals: Friend Of All Creatures
• Crazy Lixx: Thrill Of The Bite
• Ginger Evil: The Way It Burns
• Dream Theater: Parasomnia
• Tyran: Tyran's Oath
• Saber: Lost In Flames

January 2025

• Wildness: Avenger
• The Ferrymen: Iron Will
• Labyrinth: In The Vanishing Echoes Of Goodbye
• Bonfire: Higher Ground
• The Big Deal: Electrified
• Landfall: Wide Open Sky

December 2024

• After Lapse: Pathways
• Illusion Force: Halfana
• Powell-Payne: Voilá

November 2024

• Sunstorm: Restless Fight
• Storace: Crossfire
• Voodoo Circle: Hail To The King
• Lionville: Supernatural
• Starchaser: Into The Great Unkown
• Empires Of Eden: Guardians Of Time
• Lonerider: Down In The Dust
• Seventh Crystal: Entity
• Neal Morse & The Resonance: No Hill For A Climber
• Beardfish: Songs For Beating Hearts
• Impellitteri: War Machine
• Brothers Of Metal: Fimbulvinter

[ More Music Reviews ]

Overdrive: Angelmaker

Melodic Heavy/Power Metal

4.0/5.0

Lion Music
Website Facebook Twitter MySpace
by Craig Hartranft,  01.17.2011

Sweden's Overdrive is back for the heavy metal attack on this year's Angelmaker. If you raised the horns for the NWOBHM sound of 2008's Let the Metal Do the Talking, then you'll want to pump your fist to Angelmaker. Overdrive has been doing serious melodic heavy/power metal since 1980, and Angelmaker is another blistering edition.

The music is diverse, but fundamental on Angelmaker. The fundamental traditional metal elements are Overdrive's strengths: a deliberate and aggressive rhythm section, a twin guitar assault, melodious arrangements, and strong, yet harmonious, vocals and vocal arrangements. Songs like Signs All Over, In Gut We Trust, and See the Light, prove that metal can be both heavy and melodic (without pursuing hardcore or death vocals). Given the epic quality of Mother Earth and the closer, the Iron Maiden-like The Wavebreaker, Overdrive shows both their intensity and talent for solid metal.

While Angelmaker delivers the traditional heavy metal goods, it's not without some warts. For instance, To Grow and It's a Thriller smack of typical (yet quite good) Euro-power metal and nothing more. The metal variation of I Know There's Something Going On seems to play on commercial accessibility. (The song, written by Russ Ballard (Argent), was recorded in 1982 by ABBA singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida) for the solo album of the same name.) These notes don't diminish the whole of this work. Every genre and band echo some redundancy.

Ultimately, as said earlier, if you dig the modern renaissance of classic melodic heavy metal, Overdrive's Angelmaker is both authentic and entertaining. There's some outstanding, but also predictable, tunes here. Recommended.

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

If you dig the modern renaissance of classic melodic heavy metal, Overdrive's Angelmaker is both authentic and entertaining. There's some outstanding, but also predictable, tunes here.

Alphabetical Index

Here's a fun fact about Swiss legends, Gotthard: their last 16 releases, excepting their debut album, went to number one in their home country, making them one of Switzerland's most successful acts and ... [ Read More ]