Symphorce - PhorcefulAhead

Besides the usual doom and gothic stuff chief Horst normally loves to send me this month he really suprised me with the 3rd album of German power metallers Symphorce, their first album released by Metalblade. As nearly always when I receive some new promo's I had never heard of this band before. But when the disc made it's first turns in my CD player I immediately regretted the fact that I had never heard of this band before. My goodness.. I think my colleauge Ferdi would regret it that he didn't get this one when he finds out about this band..
Powermetal it is but a very melancholic breed of it thanks to the tasteful keyboard lines although I didn't find the name of a keyboard player in neither the booklet nor on the CD cover. After checking some sound samples from the first 2 albums on the band's website I come to the conclusion that the band has stepped off the gas and got more melodic as time went by. Guitarist Cedric Dupont is also active in Freedom Call and a link to this band can be found in the double and triple vocal parts on this album. Also comparissons to bands such as Nevermore and Evergrey pop to my mind. Vocalist Andy B. Franck has a both powerful and very sensetive voice with, like many of his counterparts is zowel krachtig als bijzonder gevoelig met als enige minpunt dat hij net als veel van zijn landgenoten, a still quite audible German accent. I have no idea how to describe the music differently but I think fans of both powermetal as well as more melodic or symphonic styles would really like this album. PhorcefulAhead doesn't bore me for one single moment, not even when I played it about 10 times in a row. So on November 18th head full force ahead to your record store to get your own copy which will contain 3 extra demo tracks besides the 10 songs present on my promo copy. And when you're there also check if you can get the first 2 albums ("Truth To Promises" en "Sinctuary") as well. Now that the band has signed to MetalBlade I think it wil be just a matter of time before we mention Symphorce together with the other German heroes such as Gamma Ray, Iron Savior, Blind Guardian and Freedom Call. PhorcefulAhead will definately be in my top 10 of 2002 this month they really earned there spot at the Deadly Steel section. Maybe a good idea to get to know the band a little better in an upcoming issue by having a chat with them....
--- Michiel B.

Tracks
1. Speak My Mind
2. Unbroken
3. Slow Down
4. Longing Home
5. Moving In Circles
6. Falling Through Again
7. Your Blood, My Soul
8. Rage of Violence
9. Touched and Infected
10. Nothin' Left
11. Where Night Returns (Demo)
12. Forced Fed (Demo)
13. In Times Of Grief (Demo)

Details
.. Year: 2002
.. Label: Metal Blade Records
.. Country: Germany
.. Bitrate: 192kbps
.. Ripped: EAC 9.0
.. Genre: Power Metal
.. Home-Page: http://www.symphorce.net
.. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphorce
.. MySpace: www.myspace.com/symphorcepower
.. Last.fm: N/A
.. BUY ME: http://www.merchco-online.com/metalbladerecords/
.. BUY ME: N/A

|Breed-Link|
http://www.rapidspread.com/file.jsp?id=fqnzh2dg5l
[[[ pass - breed ]]]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=