Ah Doro.... 25 Years in the business and she doesn’t look any different. With this one, she has definitely taken it up a notch, More Metal! More Cheese! and More Raised Fists!The album couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. The opening three tracks, "The Night Of The Warlock", "Running From The Devil" and "Celebrate" are just classic, fist in the air Metal, pure and simple. Even the mighty Manowar would be proud of these, especially "Celebrate" with it's opening lines "We Celebrate our Love for Rock and Metal, We Raise our Hands as we Salute!" a little clichéd perhaps, but you have to love it.
The rest of the album, unfortunately, does not live up to expectations. She dabbles in Speed Metal territory which sounds a little out of place following three Heavy "chuggers", and just doesn’t sit right at all. Luckily things do pick up again towards the end with tracks such as "I Lay My Head Upon My Sword", it’s just the "wishy-washy" middle section that let's the album down. There is even her obligatory Metal ballads, "Herzblut" (in German of course) and "Walking With The Angels" where she duets with Tarja Turunen.
Whilst this is an enjoyable, decent slab of classic Metal, with some possible future classics, you can’t help but feel it could have been amazing.
Track Listing
01 The Night Of The Warlock
02 Running From The Devil
03 Celebrate
04 Caught In A Battle
05 Herzblut
06 On The Run
07 Walking With The Angels
08 I Lay My Head Upon My Sword
09 It Kills Me
10 Long Lost For Love
11 25 Years
» www.doromusic.de
Text: Chris Rogers
