Warthur Swooping out of the night like their mascot, Primal Fear offer up a tough, hard-edged, heavy style of power metal which should shut down any suggestion that good German power metal necessarily comes with a generous helping of cheese. With, tougher, thrashier riffs than is typical for the European power metal scene (reminiscent of perhaps the faster, darker moments of early Iron Maiden) and Ralf Scheepers' knack for investing his vocals with a suitable sense of urgency, this album is likely to win over even those who are otherwise lukewarm to power metal. Like any crow or raven, Primal Fear ignore the cheeseboard in favour of tearing off tasty chunks of meat.

Kingcrimsonprog Do you like Judas Priest? What about Accept? Or the heavier Iron Maiden stuff? Ok good. Do you also like Helloween, or indeed Gamma Ray? Well then… I think I’ve got a recommendation for you.

Germany’s Primal Fear, featuring ex-Gamma Ray singer Ralf Scheepers play a very traditional and blistering take on Power Metal. Does all of Blind Guardian’s prog or Freedom Call’s happy vibes make you yearn for something a bit more simplistic and earthy? Do you wish Stratovarius didn’t have so much keyboard? Do you wish Hammerfall were a bit heavier? Then, as this album puts it, welcome to the church of blood…

The usual media line on this band is ‘Its as if Judas Priest’s Painkiller album was a whole band’ and although in the long run its slightly inaccurate, it does set you up for the right ballpark. Imagine a Thrash band covering ‘Bloodstone’ off of Screaming For Vengeance, or Gamma Ray covering a mid-tempo Accept track like ‘Dogs On Leads’ or even at a push imagine one of Kreator’s more melodic moments but with Rob Halford guest-singing.

Mix all that in a blender, add a chunky, crisp ’90s production job, a bird-mascott and a few surprises and you’ve got Jaws Of Death. Its an album of straight-forward Priest-worshipping Power Metal with incredible vocals and lead guitar, but distinctly German. Its Thrashier than the bands you’d jokingly call Flower Metal instead of Power Metal, and less folky or proggy than some Power Metal bands went in the mid-to-late ’90s, yet harder and heavier than the NWOBHM influenced and ballad filled likes of Hammerfall.

There’s a nice bit of diversity too, to break things up a bit. ‘Into The Future’ has that slightly disorientating, pulsing vibe you’d almost expect from Voivod. ‘Under Your Spell’ starts off with a synth line before evolving into a heavy yet slow track you’d expect in the middle of a Tornillo-era modern Accept album, ‘Play To Kill’ on the other hand sounds like it came straight off of Peace Sells But Who’s Buying for the first 40 seconds or so. After all that has you reeling there’s even a Rainbow cover song on there.

So yeah, its kind of hard to even talk about this album without making comparisons to other artist’s work, but you know what…so what? I love this album. I love this album because I like Hammerfall. I love this album because I like Accept. I love this album because I love the Painkiller album and wish there was more of it. I love this as a Gamma Ray fan. …But I also love it on its own merits! Jaws Of Death is a catchy, well written, entertaining heavy metal album that hits all the right sweet-spots, that has the heavy guitars I like, that has the anthemic choruses I want, that has double-kicks more often than not. That has a powerful and technical singer who has a broad range of squeals, shouts, shrieks, and clean singing styles, propped up by those Teutonic gang backing vocals every now and again ….and best of all the album is absolutely slathered in heroic guitar solos.

In terms of the band’s back catalougue; Jaws Of Death (their 1999 sophomore release) is certainly one of the best. Its a lot stronger and more defined than the debut, its more focused and pure than some of the newer stuff and just has that indefinable x-factor about it. If you like Power Metal, Thrash Metal or especially if you like Traditional Metal you’d probably love this band’s whole output, and if you’re going to try out the band for the first time I’d say there’s no better place than here.

Just listen to the vocals on ‘When The Night Comes,’ the chorus of ‘Final Embrace’ or the superb lead guitar on ‘Under Your Spell’ … this is the pure essence of Heavy Metal right here. This is what its all about. This is what Manowar spent their lives banging on about. This is something you should probably add to you collection if you haven’t already.

Stephen 'Unbreakable' might be a cliche power metal album, something that you've predicted and expected right from the start when you tore off the CD's seal and put it in the player, but PRIMAL FEAR delivered something that they're very good at and what makes this album stood out is the brilliant composition of the songs packed with an extremely tight rhythm section

After the intro, 'Strike' thrusted deep with a blistering tempo and incinerating harmonic solos. A perfect song in my book, and two other tracks that's as strong as this one is 'And There Was Silence' which reminds me a lot to classic HELLOWEEN and also 'Unbreakable Part 2', a 6-minutes power metal epic that's also the best part of the second half.

PRIMAL FEAR isn't only about power and speed, because I think of them as a cross between JUDAS PRIEST and old HELLOWEEN, so there are still plenty of awesome heavy metal tracks such as 'Give Em Hell' with a fantastic riffs; the first single, 'Bad Guys Wear Black' which ironically is only the fifth best track here; and 'Blaze of Glory'. Ralf Scheepers vocal is still a monster, and check out his take on the last tune, 'Conviction', a brutally beautiful slab of power metal.

It's probably the same old style, and sometimes the term 'consistency' always overlapped with 'monotonous', depends on how you look it. If you're looking for something fresh and new, you might not gonna find it here, but if you need something classic done right, this is a solid pick!

RuneWalsh2112 After covering most of the post Scheepers Gamma Ray albums, you might be asking why I completely ignored the first three albums featuring Ralf Scheepers on vocals? This has merely to do with the fact that I got acquainted with Gamma Ray pretty late into their career and never really felt the urge to go back and explore the band's early discography. I never had a problem with Scheepers as a front man, on contrary, I consider him an idol of Heavy Metal considering that the man's voice is still as powerful as ever after nearly 30 years in the music business!

Right after quiting Gamma Ray on the pretense of hoping to land a gig with Judas Priest, after Rob Halford quit the band, Ralf Scheepers was left out in the cold. Judas Priest went on to hire Tim 'Ripper' Owens as their new front man while Kai Hansen-fronted Gamma Ray finally broke through to the masses with the release of the acclaimed "Land Of The Free", making it nearly impossible for Scheepers to retrace his steps. Instead of crying over spilled milk, Ralf Scheepers decided to put his bitterness into music and formed Primal Fear!

The band-titled debut album had an uncanny resemblance to the "Painkiller"-era Judas Priest sound. Featuring the same heavy twin guitar action (one of which belongs to Kai Hansen) and the high pitch vocals, making this record the follow up to "Painkiller" that Judas Priest have never delivered on! The album kicks off with the now classic "Chainbreaker" which features everything that you need to know about this band, making it a perfect introduction to Primal Fear.

The rest of the album comprises of a solid mix of tracks that range between the sound of NWoBHM and Power Metal, even though the latter doesn't really manifest itself as much as it will on the band's later releases. The album features a somewhat unnecessary cover of Deep Purple's "Speedking" which really doesn't fit in with the rest of the material, even though it's fun to hear Scheepers covering Gillans classic screams.

If you're a fan of Heavy Metal and are interested in hearing how Judas Priest might have sounded like have Rob Halford not quit the band on the height of their career, then this is definitely a must have album for you! Everyone else should also give it a spin merely out of curiosity, just don't expect the album to be more than the sum of its parts.

***** star songs: Chainbreaker (4:25) Silver & Gold (3:13) Nine Lives (3:08)

**** star songs: Promised Land (4:25) Dollars (3:59) Speedking (4:01) Thunderdome (3:45)

*** star songs: Primal Fear (0:34) Formula One (4:57) Tears Of Rage (6:48) Battalions Of Hate (3:51) Running In The Dust (4:38)

Phonebook Eater 5/10

"Unbreakable" holds tight the usual cliches of Power Metal, without adding much spice to the compositions.

Primal Fear are a Power Metal band from Germany, and have been in the scene since the mid-late nineties, managing to keep a pretty decent level of popularity among fans of the genre. “Unbreakable” is the tenth studio album these guys have released, and it’s pretty much the same thing over and over, the same formulas, probably even a few riffs are the same too, although some are fun and enjoyable.

If there is something that can’t be denied about this album is that its production is incredible, extremely polished and clear. The guitars, thanks to that, sound particularly heavy and in-your-face, and, being Power metal we’re talking about, they are fast and accompanied by the strong, ballzy vocals by Ralf Scheeper that remind a bit of Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, and the fast paced rhythm section.

However, everything in the album seems overdone, and every single riff I hear, even though some are truly good, are just not at all new to my ears. This band looks like they’re not even trying to be original, and they rather stick to the usual clichés of Power Metal, which is already a genre I personally am not always fond of, especially because of it’s cheesy melodies, which are not really abundant in “Unbreakable”, but still present, and do not pass unnoticed, unfortunately.

Some good moments are detectable, like the song “Rise” or the softer “Metal Nation”, but the rest of the tracks sound extremely over the top, overheard Power Metal anthems that don’t really differ one another.

“Unbreakable” might be the bread and butter for hardcore Power Metal fans, because of it’s faithful, strong roots, but, as an occasional listener of the genre, I must say it’s a listen that didn’t do much, nor proposed any new approaches or sonic adventures. And you don’t need much more to be slightly different from the rest.