Artist: Wizard
Label: Massacre Records
Release: 2009
Running time: 49:29
Rating: 2.5/5
Wizard are a German metal band, and this year they’ll celebrate 20 years in the game. Damn, how the years fly by without mercy. Their first record, “Son Of Darkness”, came out in 1995, right around the time the melodic side of heavy metal was being rediscovered (the years of the “power metal revival”). Ever since, Wizard have loyally rewarded their fans with a new album every two years.
Many have labeled them the German answer to Manowar, but you’d never guess it from “Thor”. “Thor” is another typical Wizard-brand album. The guys either can’t, won’t, or simply aren’t able to pull away from their big love of Norse mythology! So they dedicated the new album to it too, as the title makes clear. The story revolves around the thunder god: somebody steals his hammer, Uncle Thor gets royally pissed off, so they start flinging lightning bolts around and so on… Nothing new for Wizard.
Generic story, generic music. Wizard don’t deviate from the template, and they’ll of course delight all fans of flawless power metal like Manowar (Serpent’s Wenom) and Grave Digger (shameless! Right off the bat – the first three tracks on the album, swap the vocalist for Boltendhal and Grave Digger pop up in front of your eyes all by themselves). So: double bass pedals at “full throttle” and a Teutonic riff vise with a resurrected, raw, live-sounding German production. A winning but predictable combination. The songs actually remind you most of Grave Digger because of the riff figures and the unrelenting double-bass drum stomping wound up tight across the whole album.
All in all: a good album, but nothing above and beyond. One for all lovers of fairy tales, flexed muscles, sweaty brows and the ultimate, one-and-only victory of good over evil. It’s interesting that the band has put out 8 albums in their career and hasn’t budged an inch genre-wise. Not even in 2009! Their copying is only forgivable given that they showed up when “power metal” was being rediscovered in the mid-nineties. They don’t have enough of a distinct identity for the copying to ignite every time, the way it always does with, say, Helloween, Blind Guardian or Grave Digger. But that’s already the big league of power metal.
Lineup
Sven D’Anna – vocals
Dano Boland – guitar
Michael Maass – guitar
Volker Leson – bass guitar
Sören van Heek – drums
Production
Andy Hom
Tracklist
1. Utgard (False Games)
2. Midgard’s Guardian
3. Asgard
4. Serpent’s Venom
5. Resurrection
6. The Visitor
7. What Would You Do?
8. Utgard (The Beginning)
9. Stolen Hammer
10. Lightning
11. Pounding In The Night
