That second album from the French band Heavenly really came as a surprise
to me. Not only did I not think of them being able to get a second album near
the quality of the first one, but never did I anticipated to receive such a
slap in the face. Let's get one thing clear, Ben and the guys don't need Piet
Sielck or Kai Hansen to release a great album, that I didn't know until the
first listen of this masterpiece was over, and until I realize how incredible
this band is.
One of the best album in the True Metal ranks this year, no doubts about that.
Imagine Helloween, with a lot of Angra and Stratovarius
elements merging into it... this powerful, almost magical mix give you Heavenly
! But imagine that not only you'd get the musical attributes of these great
bands together but you would also found their singers ? Yes, as incredible as
it may sound, Ben, the mastermind behind Heavenly can pretty much sing
like anyone if he feels like it. We had already noticed on the first opus how
incredible his Kiske imitation was. Well, he added singers to his resume and
those are Andre Matos and Timo Kotipelto and god knows these singers are also
difficult to imitate (and very different from each other, in both their voice
sound and style). Where I'm totally amazed is that he not just barely remind
you them, it's like he's assimilated them into his vocal range and can seamlessly
change from Timo to André and then back to Michael.
But Heavenly is more than just having copycats of singer abilities,
much more ! They deliver an epic, symphonic power packed atomic bomb music.
Not far from Helloween (we're talking of the Keepers period), their Speed
Metal is gracious, fast and extremely melodic. The merging of the bands that
clearly inspired the members of Heavenly is simply unbelievable, as it
seems the band has taken only the best parts from them, therefore creating a
super album. I don't believe the overall to be very original and certainly not
new, but the way the band fills the sound spectrum with killing guitar riffs,
majestic keyboard, great melodies and epic choirs and choruses makes you want
to pledge allegiance for them almost instantly. The album is filled only with
killer songs, one after the other, from True Metal hymns of 7 minutes in length
to type speed metal songs the album is a pure diamond and the only thing keeping
this album to get the perfect quote is it's little lack of originality.
Impressive, I still can't believe my ears here, the French now have their True
Metal gods : Heavenly. A bombastic release, not very original maybe but
it will blow away both your speakers and your mind. I believe that Ben have
been inspired by the bands he likes and that he plays the music he loves...with
a deep love the metal sound. But I also believe he is quite new to metal, and
that with experience and maybe by digging a bit more into the past to the roots
of metal, he and Heavenly might very well bring to their sound even more
amazing elements than it contains today. I predict their tour with Edguy
will be enlightening (something tells me that Ben will soon also assimilate
Toby's singing) and that their third album could very much be their decisive
one, just like Edguy with Vain Glory Opera. A new star is born
! One of the best albums this year, and a buy-or-die album for all True Metal
fans, period.