Stephen
At Vance's camp is in disarray after long-time singer, Mats Leven, and the rest members left the band, leaving the mastermind and guitarist Olaf Lenk alone, but Lenk decided the show must goes on. He successfully recruited Rick Altzi from Thunderstone, and the new line-up was completed by bassist Wolfman and drummer Alex Landenburg who had played in Axxis and Annihilator before. AFM still trusted them for another record and along came "Ride The Sky" in 2009.
This album style is rooted to the traditional heavy metal and hard rock style with some neoclassical power touch. Altzi did a pretty good job filling the spot with a similar heavy and raspy timbre as Leven. One thing that troubled me is most of the materials on the album seemed to be rushed out and missed some careful crafting. I can see some potential in songs like "Last In Line", "End of Days", or "Power", but they're lack of something punchy and strong kicks, dragging them to be a decent songs.
The album highlight felt into the title track with a monstrous fist-pumping chorus and "Salvation Day" with a Celtic-sounding riffs and stunning progression from Verse to Chorus. The latter is the best track in my opinion, but with only two powerful songs and suffered with several fillers such as "Burning Like Fire", "Wishing Well", or "Farewell", I don't think "Ride The Sky" should be released as a full length album. They should have thought of releasing an EP or a compilation with couple of new songs otherwise this could be a mediocre effort, if not bad.
However, the good thing is I can see a good chemistry going on with the new line-up, at least they performed a tight play together, and I'm hopeful for a better future release. If you're a big fan of the band, I don't see any harm in buying this album to complete your catalogue, otherwise, you have to look for their earlier effort for maximum pleasure.