Right after the departure from his former band Battle Beast, Beast In Black’s founder Anton Kabanen recruited new companions in the way of high-pitched vocalist Yannis Papadopoulos (Wardrum), bassist Mate Molnar (WISDOM), guitarist Kasperi Heikkinen (U.D.O.) and last but not least drummer Atte Palokangas (Thunderstone), who officially replaced Sami Hänninen in early 2018. Their debut, ‘Berserker’ was well received, and now they are back with the follow-up, ‘From Hell With Love’. With a similar name to his last band, as well as the cover artist who worked on the debut Battle Beast album, ‘Steel’, Kabanen is making sure everyone knows he is following in a similar vein of symphonic power metal. Some of these songs, or at least bits of the songs, are really very good indeed and show just what is possible, but as for the rest…

Okay, let’s agree to just take the keyboards out the back and put them in a crusher. There are just way too many Eighties sounds and styles for my brain to process and as for the beginning of “True Believer”, if anyone remembers “Popcorn” by Hot Butter and thought we never hear the like again, well you were wrong. As for the synth drum roll in the same song, combine this with the over the top sugar harmonies and I felt not only was I in a timewarp but I was about to be very ill. I keep reading rave reviews of this album so guess I’m in the minority again, but I know this will never again desecrate my eardrums.

Rating: 4/10

Links:
https://www.beastinblack.com/
https://www.nuclearblast.de/en/