These five "Metal Wizards" (as their record label says) used to be called as Powerage and write songs with focus on strong melodies and heavy riffs. And Axenstar have managed to do so also.

The CD kicks off with everything they've focused to do, and very surprisingly without any kind of forced intro. The opener 'All I Could Ever Be' is a fast and furious power metal track, reminding me distantly of Sonata Arctica. Then things slow down a bit, but the strong melodies and heavy riffs remain throughout the opus.

The heavy riffs are produced at Underground studios and mastered at Finnvox studios. Their sound suits their music very well, being very heavy but still clear enough to leave air for their strong songwriting abilities.

Cover artwork has been made by Travis Smith (Nevermore, King Diamond etc.). The cover has class and style much too randomly seen in metal works. With beautiful lights and colours, showing a little angel girl, the coverart deserves whole 10 points by every means. I also raise my hat to the band (and the record label also of course) who has courage to go with a cover like this and are not afraid to be judged as wimps.

Other influences than the mentioned are hard to point out. They sound very Swedish all the way. Only bands to mention here could be Storyteller (which they have played with too) and Falconer, the icons of Scandinavian metal. The track 'Scars' brings Sentenced to my mind, but that goes off very soon...

Their singer Magnus Eriksson is also a very rare talent. He is not any kind of a master singer, but to his credit, he has balanced it quite well to his performance. Only the few high notes he tries to do sound ridiculous. He doesn't scream or yell, which is very good for the band. For the lyrics I can't say much, because I don't have them. But by reading the names of the songs, I'd imagine them to be very traditional too.

Axenstar offers you very basic Scandinavian melodic metal. They don't have any medieval, classical, orchestral, viking, industrial or any kind of other trendy influences. They just do metal as Swedes should do, and let others show off. And I like that very much. Highly recommended to everyone who want their metal served rough and without too much exotic spices.

Reviewed by Mikki
09/24/2002 21:51