Brainstorm-Ambiguity (Metal Blade) 2000
A friend of mine from Norway turned me onto this cd. I had actually never heard of this band before getting it in the mail so I decided to do a little investigating before I listened to the disc. I discovered these guys are from Germany and have toured Europe with such bands as Iced Earth and Grave Digger. Being that these are two of my favorite power metal bands, I was anxious to check out Brainstorm. To my surprise and delight Brainstorm play crushing heavy metal not unlike Iced Earth. I think one of the biggest similarities that I heard was in the mid to high vocal range of Andy Franck who reminded me slightly of Matthew Barlow. Despite this, however, the songwriting, and especially the style of rhythm guitar playing is unique to this band. Album opener "Crush Depth" is a pummeling power metal song, as is the majority of the music on this disc. The song starts off with an eerie clean guitar part before coming in full tilt at about a minute into the song. "Tear Down the Walls" takes the intensity up a bit, as well as the speed. 'Beyond My Destiny' is a superb power metal ballad with orchestration, killer vocal-arrangements and a big hook. 'Ambiguity' is the band's third cd and they also have a newer disc out called "Metus Mortis" on Metal Blade that I also had a promo copy of for a few days. Hopefully by the next update I will have a regular copy.