The first four songs on this release are awesome, and insanely catchy. The choruses in "Steel Winged Warrior", "I Will Not Die Today" and "Chrome Skull Viper" in particular are absolute ear-worms. Where the songs really succeed is in their ability to combine power metal with 1980's style arena rock. And the infectious hooks and choruses are just a part of that. This combination is particularly prevalent on "Checkmate...Annihilate!" which has several moments, such as the climax, that would make Van Halen proud. The song genuinely starts off sounding like Bon Jovi.
The album is driven by incredibly strong performances on guitar, vocals and keyboards. Dream Tröll comes damn close to synth-rock in several places and there are multiple shredding keyboard solos. If that is what you would call such an instrumentally-proficient solo.
If there are any negatives, the major one would be that the album is quite long and some of the songs tend to overstay their welcome. "Chrome Skull Viper" is a great song, but it could have easily been just a four or five minute song, instead of the over seven minutes that it lasts. The chorus repeats more often than it really needs to. The only other quibble is that after the awesome first half, the second half kind of disappoints. The best songs are all on the first half and could have been placed in a better sequence. But these are fairly minor quibbles.
This is the third release I have picked up from Dream Tröll this year and each one has been very impressive. I still do not think that it quite matches the incredible EP that I mentioned before, but I do like it better than the debut full-length. This is a band that I am vowing to follow as they continue to put out music.
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