PRETTY MAIDS — Pandemonium (review)

PRETTY MAIDS — Pandemonium album cover Album · 2010 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Pelata
Denmark’s Pretty Maids have spent the better part of 30 years putting out their brand of melodic heavy metal music. Always striking a balance between barn-burning metal aggression and near-AOR catchiness, the band has been arguably one of the more consistent bands in our beloved scene. Never quite achieving the success of contemporaries like Def Leppard or Judas Priest, yet finding their own core sound and audience, Ronnie Atkins and the boys may have stumbled here and there, but have yet to disappoint.

2010 brings us Pandemonium, the band’s 12th full-length studio album in its 27-year run as a recording entity (which also includes 4 EP’s, 2 live albums and 2 compilations). As I stated, the band has been one of the more consistent in recent memory, with fewer instances of collective fan disappointment than just about any other band I can think of. They do what they do and they do it quite well. This album has a combination of the heavy edge of Planet Panic and the layered melodic aura of Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing coming up with their strongest album since 2000′s Carpe Diem.

Rather than separating elements among different songs (as in some past efforts), the band combines it’s metal and melodic rock personalities forming a very strong set of songs. “Little Drops Of Heaven” sports a chorus as strong as anything the band has ever done in a near-perfect mid-tempo rocker. The same can be said of “Final Day Of Innocence” and “I.N.V.U.”. On the energetic “Cielo Drive” the band cranks up the metal with a classic Judas Priest styled riff and another monster chorus. The title track delvers the Metal in this fashion as well.

The only two bands I mentioned as reference in this review, Def Leppard and Judas Priest, sum up the overall vibe of Pretty Maids. Two bands that have their own unique identities creating another. Pretty Maids the band, and Pandemonium the album, is like a modern blend of Pyromania and Screaming For Vengeance. Pretty Maids are melodic heavy metal at its finest.
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