We will not give you the affront to introduce you to the protagonists of this new release of Hard Rock Melodic. Indeed, you take the same quartet as for the two previous albums and let it take care of presenting you with a new adventure that you hope will be very colourful. "The Showdown" is his name!
First, the cover is well designed, the creatures and settings of usual imaginary world are indeed there, in a rather bellicose context. So the container is attractive, let's move on to the content.
Twelve titles are proposed. One evolves in a rather muscular and epic trend: "The Showdown", another pours into classical Hard FM with attractive melody on the program ("Allias"), a third, bathed in a Hard Rock Melodic offers somes big riffs while striking an implacable melody ("Turn All Into Gold"). Two tracks are in the ballad category: "Copernicus" and "Eternity" (the second one being more affluent).
As for the rest, they sail on the seas of the mid-tempo, epic like "Judgement Day" (see video below) and "Never Again" and their colossal choruses, as well as "We Will Rise Again" and "The Artist" (what a solo!) which ignites a little less. "Bloodlines" remains linear and falls asleep a little bit like "The Guardian" and "Maya" close to Magnum, with its fantastic verse but its chorus really below.
If "The Showdown" may well disappoint those who seek epic atmospheres and velocity in the compositions, lovers of grandiloquence and moderate speed tracks will undoubtedly appreciate this third part of the Allen/Lande saga.