Band : Methusalem
Album title : Unite And Conquer
Label : Metal Revelation
Distributor : Rock Inc. - Bertus
Release Date : 26/03/2010
Release : CD

Although the crisis in the music industry is still going on, it's unbelievable how many releases there are nowadays.  Amongst all those releases it's easy to go by unnoticed.
Since I hadn't heard of this band before - not a real surprise since my main interest is not pure heavy metal, although now and then I don't say no to a bit of headbanging, I was quite curious what material I'd gotten.

Of course I started out by searching some info about this band on the internet.  Turned out they are Dutch, and had released one album before this Sentenced To Rock.  But, whereas with material like on this CD, you'd have no problem whatsoever to be signed by a label, sadly enough these days that is not true anymore.  So they released this album themselves. What to tell about the music.  It's good eighties style metal, well performed and well written.  Harold De Vries has a lot of power in his voice, and the guitars, played by Dennis Hoekstra and Jan Veenstra sound clean and crisp, with some good, alternating soloing going on. About the songs.  Well there are only nine of them on the album, alternating between really rocking songs like "Forever" and mid-tempo songs like "Brothers In Arms".  OK they do repeat all the clichés of eighties metal, but is that something to complain about.  Me thinks not.

May these guys be signed by a label please, because with a minimal extra budget they might deliver the stuff that really could make them break through.

80/100

Erik Morren.