Metalium - Millenium Metal Chapter One

Storming into the German metal scene is Metalium with their no frills, take no prisoners, heavier power metal sound. Upon first spin of the disk, the songs failed to catch my attention and I quickly dismissed it as another attempt at doing power metal from another mediocre band, but the second time around it really grabbed me. The nice fat production is a big plus, making all the tunes sound polished and clean, with little muddiness, and the drums are mixed especially well. Aggressive and brutal with very little keyboard/piano to speak of, but the songs have a melodic core reguardless of the 'lightening' of sound often found in some bands. They fall closest to the category of Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian but sound like neither band or any other one that I can put my finger on at the moment. The songs are not quite as frantically speedy but contain a heavier edge. The vocalist is definitely worthy of mention, with a great set of pipes, who is being called one of the best vocalist to come out of the land of Germany in the past ten years, and upon listening to his passionate, rich, masculine, and very powerful performance I can see why. Henning Basse is getting the most attention from the band members here despite Chris Caffery of Savatage being the individual that put it together. The next Bruce Dickinson maybe? He definitely has the potential to be a 'name' with a voice like that. Its refreshing to hear such powerful vocals over the top of heavy music like this. Not a trace of high pitched 'girlyness' in the voice, and 'true' metal bands with higher pitched singers tend to bother me like Hammerfall at times. Sharp crisp guitars and some great bass thrown in to round the album out.

The choruses are very cool, that give the feel of the army of the warriors of metal have brought their legions to throw in the gang vocals to support the lead, which screams and blows upon the fourteen songs on the disk. And even though there is talent abound on the disk, there's no doubt that its the songs that make the meat of any release, and on "Millenium Metal Chapter One", there's alot to like. The scream infested "Metalium" has a fighting sound and lots of drum work from Mike Terrana. "Strike Down the Heathen" sounds like a cross between Iron Maiden and Manowar. Absolutely out of this world rhythm section. The drums are mixed up nice and loud right on a par with the guitar riffing with the vocals breaking out upon the top in full force. Its a faster metal song, but has a surprising twist in the fact the drums are very fast and quick while the vocals rip straight from the throat and are more drawn out with each note held nicely with not even the slightest hint of being rushed. "Metalians" is another superb song, starting out with the a spoken voice going "I will be triumphant!". Did I mention this was a concept album? well yes it is! This tune reminds me of Primal Fear a bit, more great aggressive vocals and guitar work but "Metalians" also has a superb melody thrown in to make it even better. The chorus is to die for and prompts a sing-a-long session from beginning to finish, with the gang vocals doing the "ahhhhh" thing and backup where needed. The true metallers will love this 'fist raising' power metal tune, and with the great vocals, guitar, production and extremely solid drumwork, make this as fine of true power metal as you will likely ever hear. Enough complexities to make it a really nice and catchy track. "Metamorphosis" is the only track I noticed to have keyboards, with lush more gentle vocals at the beginning and very pretty piano. The feeling of Savatage is all over this one, and even delivered stronger than normal due to the fact Basse is singing like Zak Stevens (from Savatage). This is the only song on the album where the pace is slowed down any but it comes just at the perfect time and is a standout piece on the album for its atmospeheric sound and reminds me slightly of an Athena song at times. To wrap up the raving of the songs on here, I'll mention the cover of "Smoke On the Water". Everyone knows this is simply one of those classic hard rock/metal tunes which has been played to death but still doesnt sound dated even 25 years later, that was originally a Deep Purple song, which I always liked, but Metalium's version simply kicks ass. No other way to describe it. The song is pushed and shoved into a power/ speed metal sound and comes out being perfection. I think it stands on its own even with the original. Put to the sounds of power metal it really slays and kills and sounds very sharp.

To sum it up, Metalium's "Millenium Metal Chapter One" came as a big surprise for me, but a pleasant one at any rate. Superb vocals, great guitar, strong rhythm section, catchy power metal songs with enough melody to make them flow nicely and very polished production make the elements that come together to form one exceptionally solid piece of metal. A mention must go to bassist Lars Ratz for doing one helluvah job on the production and making this piece sound extremely tight and just perfect. Metalium...representing the fusion of Metal with the conviction of the new Millenium. That pretty much says it all right there. One of the essential albums of the year.

Rating = 9.2
by Alanna Evans
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