Ironware - Break Out

Ironware - Break Out Tracklisting 1. Gateway. 2. Holy Man. 3. Dark Sun. 4. From Deep Inside. 5. Time Machine. 6. Sanctuary. 7. Saviours. 8. Return Of The King. 9. What Is Going On. 10. Break Out. 11. Man Of Hope. I've been waiting for this album for about five years! Not literally, but from the first time I heard Ironware's first demo Tales From A Twisted World, I thought they were going to be signed very quickly. That finally happened in 2002, and now LMp is sending out their first full length Break Out. I know most of the songs from the demo and the Mcd that followed, but that doesn't make the listening experience anything lesser! The clear inspiration for this Swedish act is Gamma Ray, Helloween, and "Kai Hansen riffs" in general, but this time around it is done convincingly and with a fresh approach! Sweet melodies, great hooklines, hard pounding drums, crunchy guitar riffs and a singer with a highpitched and also very personal voice make this album a delight from start to end! The album is packed with great songs from start to end, making it hard to pick out the highlights. The extremely catchy and addictive Time Machine together with the slower Saviours make the "hits" of the album, two sing-a-long, rather happy sounding Power Metal songs, and in the good way! From Deep Inside is to me a very emotional song, with a great riff, atmospheric keybord and the great vocals of Pasi Hummpi, also the lyrics about daring to be yourself and fighting the pain inside yourself. The structure is great and doesn't just follow one pattern, but has a good variation in speed. Well done! The lyrical side is not outstanding, but not catastrophically bad either. Themes are pretty trivial stuff for this style, like being true to yourself, standing up for your believes, etc. plus the usual fantasy stuff about kings and time machines, etc. Well, maybe not totally original, but enjoyable to me, I find the lyrics to be all right. Sanctuary is a fast paced, hardpounding track, with a great hookline, and as in many of the songs, the variation of bridge, chorus and verse is balanced very well, though the chorus is a little on the edge of being overused. But a very enjoyable song! Return Of The King must be the most epic song here, starting out with piano and silent, emotional singing, but soon taking a very heavy turn when the hard guitar and pounding drums sets in. A great bridge and chorus follows and once again the structure of the song is great! When my rating is not higher, despite all my praising words, it is because I do miss some more originality. The band is good, but if they don't find a more personal sound, they will drown in the masses of bands that are just that. Also, the record is pretty varied when compared to a lot of other bands playing this style, but if they worked just a little more on the complexity of some songs, I believe it would raise the quality just that little extra bit to make them seriously stand out from the masses!

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