Band : Ilium
Album title : Genetic Memory
Label : Escape Music – Connecting Music
Distributor : Escape Music – Connecting Music
Release Date : 26/08/2011
Release : CD

If you thought Australia was only capable of producing hard rock bands like ACDC, or more mainstraim rock bands like INXS or even not so mainstaim rock bands like Midnight Oil you’re making a serious mistake.

Take for instance Ilium, a power metal band from Newcastle, Australia.  This is their fifth full album already.  I find it a bit strange that this album is released by Escape Music, since Ilium’s music tends more towards power metal, whereas Escape Music is renowned for it’s AOR releases, and this stuff is, to put, it mildly a bit heavier..
With former Riot and Masterplan singer Mike DiMeo on vocals you have of course a top notch vocalist. But Ilium’s music is nowhere near what Masterplan or Riot have ever released.  Yet this is good power meta, notwithstanding the fact that the production could have been better.  It sounds good, but at times a bit thin. 

Still, this is a nice album. Nothing out of the extraordinary and not an album that would feature in my top 100 list of all times, but there”s far worse than this.

75/100

Erik Morren.