Angel Dust – Enlighten the Darkness – Review

Angel Dust

Enlighten the Darkness (Century Media)
by Martin Popoff

Now quickly and soundly arrived with three “reunion” albums (after a couple records in the late ’80s followed by a ten year hibernation), Germany’s Angel Dust are proving that power metal can indeed include a solid wallop of just that: Power. Aided and abetted by producer extraordinaire Siggi Bemm, Angel Dust’s weapons are many, a sampling of which include Dirk Assmuth’s dirty, boomy drum sound, Bernd Aufermann’s focus on low, grinding riffery and most impressively, Dirk Thurisch’s vocals, which remind me of Peter Goalby from early ’80s Uriah Heep, but with an extra couple of actorly roles within his repertoire.

Keyboards are tastefully incorporated into the juggernaut sound, and the band proves its intelligence by using them to turn their ballads (and many ballady breaks) into something special. An expert job by a band working within tradition, yet retaining like so few do, the fact that post-Rainbow classical metal is supposed to still be metal.
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