Band : The Seventh Power

Album title : The Seventh Power

Label : Retroactive Records – Music Buy Mail

Distributor : Brutal Planet Distribution – Artist Service

Release date : 30/05/2008 (or. release 2006)

Release : CD

The Seventh Power is a band fronted by William Paul Menchen, also known as Bill, guitarist for Titanic and Final Axe. For more about the guitarist's antecedents, look up the review of the Final Axe album. If you've done that, you'll understand that the year 2005 was a very important and pivotal one in the career of this Las Vegas based Christian musician as, having been enabled to re-issue the recordings of his old band, he then got re-acquainted with drummer Robert Sweet whom would provide the drums on the Final Axe album.

The two must've hit it off quite well, because that was the start of a continued collaboration, starting with this The Seventh Power project. On the bass, Bill invited his old pal Rod Reasner from the Final Axe days. The music brought by TSP is classic Heavy Metal with a Doomy flavour. Although there àre some faster (short) passages, the atmosphere is mostly a sinister one with a certain elegance, with effected guitars frequently embellished with Menchen's innovative additions. A couple of the songs even get a very nice additional keyboard (played as piano on "Eyes In The Skies", "Heaven's Gates" and "The Power"; as a more atmospheric instrument on "Possessor Of You" ) tune on top of it! For this project, Menchen has also taken over vocal duties, and it appears that he is the possessor of a very nice high pitch, which is somewhat remeniscent of Ozzy in his Black Sabbath days, albeit with less variety in the tonality. You could even say that Bill's voice is somewhat monotonous...which doesn't mean that isn't exactly what some of the songs warrant! Luckily, he uses a couple of tricks (doin an almost "spoken word" passage, putting some effect on his voice) in some of the songs to create that necessary vocal variety, preventing the listener to turn away his head all too quickly. In contradiction to that statement of mine about a certain degree of monotomy, I have to admit I fell completely (and from the first listening session) for the lyrically challenged "Ocean Of Emotion Motion" (the only other words used being "an" and "in"). Another track I instantly loved was the almost-instrumental (lyrics dó appear towards the end of the song, with vocals done in a mode between spoken word and song, and through a vocoder) "Seven Golden Lampstands". To get a whiff of what the project sounds like, surf to myspace.com/theseventhpowerdotcom, where you'll not only find mp3-files for this album's "Heaven's Gates", but also for the title track and another song off the soon to be released new album by the band! As the music and vocals move on in the same direction as on this album, you can consider the newer songs as representative for the project as a whole.

Oh...I mentioned the re-entrance of Sweet in Menchen's life as being pivotal in the latter's life, didn't I? Well, know then that the guitarist is about to release a solo album featuring Sweet on the drums. Billed as Menchen, the Red Rock album also features singer Ken Redding and a special appearance of the renowned Tony Franklin on the bass. But that ain't all Bill's been up to in the last two years! As mentioned in the Final Axe review (a small correction about the info in there: the line-up apparently underwent a change in 1990, drummer Chris Lattimer – who played on the first demo – being replaced by Chris Reth. The two having the same christian name confused me, see?) Bill was also active with Rev Seven, who have over the years apparently recorded a bùnch of albums. Four of those were re-recorded and will be made available as Heavy Laden Vol. 1 (containing the albums The Unveiling and Hell And Back) and Heavy Laden Vol. 2 (with the material of Seven Years Of Good Luck and 747), released through the Rad Rockers imprint. Nót mentioned in the Final Axe review, is Bill's first band Redeemer, in which he resided from 1986 to 1989, and with which he'd recorded a demo. Then, he recently rediscovered a live recording of that band, and a couple of additional tapes with material that had never been heard outside the rehearsal room before. To give those songs the respect they deserve, he decided to re-record everything, and the material should soon be available from Retroactive subsidiary Watergrave on two CDs entitled Double Edge Sword and Anno Domini. (more info on Bill's activities can be found at theseventhpower.com)

Turning our attention back on the current review, it's time for our final conclusion, which is far from negative overall! In fact, I need to stress I would very, véry much like to hear TSP's sophomore album indeed...because even if I won't go as far as to add the band's first album to my year-lists (which would be somewhat difficult, as it was actually released in 2006), it doés contain some truly inventive guitar play indeed!

90/100

Tony.