The concept behind Tears of Anger is apparently to meld together AOR and Metal and what they’ve come up with in 'Still Alive' is actually strongly reminiscent of Dream Theater with the mix of heavy riffs, catchy vocals and technical guitar/keyboard parts. Opening song 'The Awakening' begins with a heroic keyboard part that brings to mind the scene all classic war movies have with the tattered flag fluttering in the wind and then crashes into a surprisingly heavy riff, it’s a very effective way to start the album.

When this album is good it’s very good as on 'Nightmare', 'Afraid Of The Dark' and the aforementioned 'The Awakening' but all too often I feel that the song doesn’t really come alive until the chorus comes along. To bring back the Dream Theater reference, where that band are often criticised in some quarters for their songs being too lengthy I feel that Tears Of Anger have the opposite problem - their songs are all under five minutes long and it sometimes feels as though the good ideas present in the songs aren’t given time to develop before it’s all over.

There’s a great sense of melody throughout, something increasingly typical of Swedish bands. Still Alive is one of those frustrating albums that has the potential to be a great album but for one reason or another is merely good.

***

Review by Neil Woodfin

£12.99