AFM
2009
1. The Night Of The Warlock
2. Running From The Devil
3. Celebrate
4. Caught In A Battle
5. Herzblut
6. On The Run
7. Walking With The Angels
8. I Lay My Head Upon My Sword
9. It Kills Me
10. Long Lost For Love
11. 25 Years
I've long been a fan of Doro, but have become more so in recent years with her release of Warrior Soul, which is in my opinion her best solo effort to date. I was also recently impressed when I saw her live for the first time and she put on a most excellent show. Needless to say I was anticipating new material after that.
Unfortunately, this is not the album I was expecting or wanting. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, but this album simply doesn't come together. The songwriting for the most part simply isn't there and some songs like Caught In A Battle with it's noisy sounding, distracting drumming just sounds slapped together and out of sync with itself. Caught In A Battle sounds like a really forced heavy track where none of the band is on the same page and is the worst offender here. Other misses include Running From The Devil with it's boring groove guitar and On The Run which has an upbeat pace that reminds me of the last album, but simply doesn't measure up in quality and memorability.
I will say that things aren't all bad here as one of the singles that lead the album, Celebrate, is an ass kicking anthem backed by a choir including Sabina Classen, Angela Gossow, Live Kristine, Floor Jansen, Veronica Freeman, and Girlschool. This song just sounds big and succeeds at that larger than life metal anthem approach. Walking With The Angels also succeeds with some guest talent courtesy of a duet with Tarja Turunen of former Nightwish fame. Just a great duet ballad featuring two talented singers. Night of the Warlock is also pretty decent, but the repetitive chorus gets a bit tiring by the end. Herzblut is another decent one, but again not quite a standout as I've heard these same sung in German ballads out of Doro before.
There are at least some decent songs here and only one real clunker, but really only 2 songs that get me particularly excited and both of them are at least partly based on outside talent. I don't dislike this album, but the bottom line has to be that it's just not that exciting and lacks enough highlights for a strong rating. I'd pretty much only recommend this one to fans and certainly not as a starting place for someone new to Doro.
Highlights: Celebrate, Walking With The Angels
Rating - 3.0/5
2. Running From The Devil
3. Celebrate
4. Caught In A Battle
5. Herzblut
6. On The Run
7. Walking With The Angels
8. I Lay My Head Upon My Sword
9. It Kills Me
10. Long Lost For Love
11. 25 Years
I've long been a fan of Doro, but have become more so in recent years with her release of Warrior Soul, which is in my opinion her best solo effort to date. I was also recently impressed when I saw her live for the first time and she put on a most excellent show. Needless to say I was anticipating new material after that.
Unfortunately, this is not the album I was expecting or wanting. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, but this album simply doesn't come together. The songwriting for the most part simply isn't there and some songs like Caught In A Battle with it's noisy sounding, distracting drumming just sounds slapped together and out of sync with itself. Caught In A Battle sounds like a really forced heavy track where none of the band is on the same page and is the worst offender here. Other misses include Running From The Devil with it's boring groove guitar and On The Run which has an upbeat pace that reminds me of the last album, but simply doesn't measure up in quality and memorability.
I will say that things aren't all bad here as one of the singles that lead the album, Celebrate, is an ass kicking anthem backed by a choir including Sabina Classen, Angela Gossow, Live Kristine, Floor Jansen, Veronica Freeman, and Girlschool. This song just sounds big and succeeds at that larger than life metal anthem approach. Walking With The Angels also succeeds with some guest talent courtesy of a duet with Tarja Turunen of former Nightwish fame. Just a great duet ballad featuring two talented singers. Night of the Warlock is also pretty decent, but the repetitive chorus gets a bit tiring by the end. Herzblut is another decent one, but again not quite a standout as I've heard these same sung in German ballads out of Doro before.
There are at least some decent songs here and only one real clunker, but really only 2 songs that get me particularly excited and both of them are at least partly based on outside talent. I don't dislike this album, but the bottom line has to be that it's just not that exciting and lacks enough highlights for a strong rating. I'd pretty much only recommend this one to fans and certainly not as a starting place for someone new to Doro.
Highlights: Celebrate, Walking With The Angels
Rating - 3.0/5
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