Dungeon - One Step Beyond
Australia is a rising star in the world. Crocodile hunter Steve Irwin conquered the hearts of many animal friends throughout the world and maybe some of you can remember the follow-up to the popular – stupid, cheap, mindless – reality show ‘The Bachelor’, ‘Outback Jack’, which didn’t quite achieved the succes like its predecessor.
Besides Australia Zoo, kangaroos and bachelors named Jack, Australia also contributes to the international metal scene.
Dungeon, formed in 1989, is a power speed metal band from the desert outback of Broken Hill, Australia, where ‘Lord’ Tim Grose stood at its cradle.
‘One Step Beyond’ already is their sixth studio album and features 8 songs and an epilogue.
The first few riffs of the album are a killer. I don’t think they could’ve found a better opener than ‘The Power Within’. The fast verses and the little yell at the beginning awake an appetite for more.
‘Against The Wind’ is a slower, but very melodic and well-composed power metal song, which I instantly liked. The melodic intro is catchy as hell and the melody is very beautiful. It also contains a chorus you’ll want to sing along with. Every single note.
I am one of those blokes who look at titles of songs and say ‘this should be a killer song’. Hence why my eyes turned straight to ‘The Art Of War’.
I was right.
Mysterious keys, followed by a mysterious battle hymn-like little melody that roll over into a fast-riffing burst, and... what’s this? Do I really hear grunts and screams in the background? Why, yes! This is getting more interesting by the minute.
An absolut favourite of mine is ‘Surface Tension’. This song is quite fast and the verse-riff is addictingly catchy. More thrash-like, I’d say. Nice!
‘One Step Beyond’ is an album which kept surprising me when I heard it the first time. Tim might not have a special voice in power metal land, but the screams and grunts (unfortunately scarce) add an extra dimension to the sound of the band. It fits the songs very well and contributes to the whole greatly.
The skills of the musicians certainly aren’t bad, but they could’ve done more with the songs. Although impressive the first time, you’ll completely know the songs by heart when listening it to the second time. Good for some, bad for others.
The solos can be a bit messy, but to Slayer fans they should trigger a string of recognition.
Other than that, the album isn’t quite as fast as I expected it to be. It’s more power metal than speed metal, although ‘One Step Beyond’ contains some thrash riffs and speedmetal bursts. But you’ll have to keep an eye out for them, because they can be hard to trace in some of the songs.
Also, I still fail to understand why bands would put an ‘Epilogue’ or ‘Intro’ on their album, even if it doesn’t contribute to the atmosphere of the content. It’s a waste of space, if you ask me. Use that space for another kick-ass song, but don’t go putting one-minute-with-useless-notes there.
In general, I can say that ‘One Step Beyond’ is a good album, that will immediately catch the attention of powermetal fans.
Don’t overdo it, though, or you might lose interest in this disk a lot sooner than you’d like.
Dungeon are:
‘Lord’ Tim Grose – vocals, guitars, keyboards
Stuart Marshall – guitars
Pete Peric – bass
Grahame Goode – drums
Tracklist:
- The Power Within
- Against The Wind
- The Art Of War
- The Hunger
- Surface Tension
- Tarranno Del Mar
- One Step Beyond
- Under The Cross
- Epilogue
76/1001Details Limb Music Products
Released on Tuesday Nov 30th, -0001
Power Speed Metal
Writer @Bastian Blackrain on Friday Apr 15th, 2005
Tags: #Dungeon
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