Tracks:

Highs Without Lows
Doorway to Survive
The Leading
Nunea Nos Renuimos
Fading
Shiva's Tears
Fornever
Soul Temptation
Dying Outside
To the Head
Rising

I recently picked up a copy of Brainstorm's "Ambiguity" CD, and thought it was pretty good. I did not hear the CD that came between "Ambiguity" and "Soul Temptation", so I'm interested to give this a spin and see how they have progressed.

These days, most metal bands seem to fall into either the death/black genre, or the true/power metal category. Brainstorm certainly isn't a death/black band, but neither are they what I would consider a typical power metal band either. The other day I read a review that compared Brainstorm to Iced Earth. While they don't technically sound at all like Iced Earth, I can agree that like Iced Earth they are a little harder to categorize.

Brainstorm and Iced Earth definitely play melodic music, and the vocals are clean and melodic, but they don't follow what I think of as the stereotype of power metal these days. Most power metal now sounds like either Helloween/Gamma Ray or Rhapsody. Not so Brainstorm. Brainstorm has riffs. There is separation between the instruments. The vocals in the chorus don't sound like 500 people singing together. So Brainstorm in not your typical power metal band.

The production on this disc is beautiful. The spectacular lead work sounds amazing. Everything sounds really good, no complaints in this department.

Now that I think about it, I think there might be a bit of an Iron Maiden influence here too. That's not much of a surprise though, find me a metal band worth anything that hasn't been influenced by the mighty Maiden. Were it not for the existence of Manowar I would instantly declare Iron Maiden the greatest metal band ever.

"Soul Temptation" combines 80's metal style and a modern sound to make what I consider a great listen. I think some of these nu-metal bands should give a listen to this CD and maybe they would recall how metal is supposed to sound. This album has depth and spirit driving it, something completely lacking in the "metal" that popular American radio would have us purchase. Hail to Brainstorm, death to (nu) false metal!