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EDGUY ‘Rocket Ride’ Nuclear Blast(2006)
A couple of months ago, I managed to surprise quite a few of my friends with the review that I did for Edguy's EP "Superheroes", and even as I write these lines, I still support what I said about that release back then. Of course, a six track EP is only capable of giving you a faint impression of what to expect from a band, and keeping that in mind, I promised myself that I would wait for the band's next full-length album before I passed any judgement.
Well, the time has finally come and so did the promo of the band's latest release "Rocket Ride". The first thing that one will notice is the typical humoristic animated album cover, which has lately become something of a trademark for the band over the years. Of course, the main focus should be on the music, so I will get straight to that.
All those people who claim that Edguy are nothing more than a Euro Power Metal band are going to be quite surprised with the eleven compositions that Tobias Sammet and Co are presenting in their 8th full-length release. The nicely arranged piano theme that opens "Sacrifice" will invite you into another dimension, the soundtrack of which is based upon the music of Queen, Scorpions and Motley Crue, rather than the average fast tempo rhythms that bands like Rhapsody and Gamma Ray are normally content to produce in their compositions. So far, so good, but what about the rest of the album? Well I was really happy to find out that, apart from the quite boring tunes of "Return to the Tribe " (where the band sounds annoyingly enough like a bad copy of Stratovarius) and the comedy track "Trinidad", the remaining songs of the album are good quality 80's Hard Rock anthems, with the amazing guitar theme of the "The Asylum" and the Bon Jovi sounding "Catch of the Century" standing out, which are more than capable of attracting your attention.
So far, my main contact with the band's music was through their live performances at big festivals like Bloodstock (UK) and Wacken (GER), but having been exposed to the quality and honesty of an album such as "Rocket Ride", I will not have to think twice before getting my hands on any future release of this amazingly humoristic outfit.
****
Review by John Stefanis
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