Label: Steamhammer / SPV Records
Release date: August 24, 2018
Production: Mob Rules
Album length: 57.28 min
Genre: Power Metal
Mob Rules are a German power metal band celebrating 25 years together this year, and 20 years since their debut “Savage Land” (1999). Late last August the band’s new album came out, their ninth studio record overall, titled “Beast Reborn”.
The album couldn’t carry a more fitting name. The band refreshed its lineup a while back, and the previous studio album, “Tales From Beyond”, is considered one of the more interesting records in their discography. Mob Rules quickly lined up with the power metal revival bands of the second half of the nineties, but they missed the first train by a hair with their debut, so to this day they’ve never really broken through on the scene the way some of their contemporaries from that era did (HammerFall, Primal Fear, Rhapsody, Stratovarius). In 2016 the band added yet another guitarist and now works as a sextet. The experienced and downright excellent Sven Lüdke remains the main lead guitarist on the new record, which is packed with charismatic, decisive riffs of just the right punch and catchiness, and Sönke Janssen is now in the lineup to back him up on rhythm.
“Beast Reborn” packs some serious running time, an ambitious 58 minutes. Counting the intro, there are eleven tracks on the album. A few of the seriously stretched-out compositions (Travellers In Time, Revanent Of the Sea and War Of Curents) unfold like mini power metal suites. That shows a lot of maturity, but also the fresh creative spark and drive that Mob Rules have found again.
A good number of the songs this time bring extremely bold and spot-on chorus melodies, which deliver the atmospheric peaks within the tracks and work especially bombastically and hungrily (and that’s the heart of a good power metal song). Old-school power metal through and through. Klaus Dirks remains the only original member of the lineup, and with his performance on the new album he once again proves he’s an exceptionally good vocalist, one who has kept developing and building on his vocal strengths, with a clear dose of inspiration from Ronnie James Dio’s figure and work. This highly melodic and infectious voice certainly doesn’t lack explosiveness and authority.
Considering that today’s power metal scene is somewhat neglected, and that new generations of fans only get hooked on it if the stage is cranked up with the kitsch and glitz of the old school’s “imitators” (Powerwolf, Sabaton,…), or else they turn to the more extreme branches of metal that demand growling instead of singing, Mob Rules, with their excellent new album “Beast Reborn”, are among the few standard-bearers of the first power metal generation who persist and defy the times in their basic, old-school form of ossified Euro power metal. In doing so they prove they’ve honed their strengths to the max, and with the new album they don’t just show great heart and devotion to the genre, they also make it clear that this is one of the most consistent and high-quality first-generation power metal bands, and let’s hope that in these new times they win more attention and recognition on the wider metal scene. It’s the least they deserve for their perseverance.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 8.5 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Beast Reborn
2. Ghost Of A Chance
3. Shores Ahead
4. Sinister Light
5. Traveller In Time
6. Children’s Crusade
7. War Of Currents
8. The Explorer
9. Revenant Of The Sea
10. Way Back Home
11. My Sobriety Mind (For Those Who Left)
Lineup:
Klaus Dirks – vocals
Sven Lüdke – guitar
Sönke Janssen – guitar
Jan Christian Halfbrodt – keyboards
Markus Brinkmann – bass
Nikolas Fritz – drums
