Label: SPV
Releasedate: 26-04-2010

By: Rob

Axel Rudi Pell is a hard rock/heavy metal band from Germany.
They were formed in 1989 after Axel Rudi Pell himself departed with Steeler.
The new album The Crest is already the fourteenth full length album of the band.
In 1998 they welcomed a new vocalist ‘Johnny Gioeli’ to the band. Since then the line up of the band hasn’t changed and we get every 2 years a newgood album.
The new album ‘The Crest’ has been produced by Axel Rudi Pell himself for the first time and to say he has done a very good job on that. All the instruments sound clear and are good in balance and together with the
singing it sounds very solid.

The album starts with a nice epic intro followed by Too Late. That songs marks what Axel Rudi Pell is good in and what you always can expect from them. And that’s not different on this album.
Too Late has a good song structure and nice guitar solo. Devil’s Zone is more a mid tempo song. Prisoner Of Love has a nice chorus which you immediately can sing along with. After that the song Dreaming Dead comes by and that’s a real masterpiece. It’s almost 8 minutes long and by far the best song of this album. The song starts good and builds itself to a more than 2 minute long guitar solo. The only thing you can do when you listen to this song is enjoy it. Ofcourse there is also a ballad on this album and this band is one of the best of
making ballads. Glory Night is a real power ballad. The chorus sticks in your head right away.
If you weren’t convinced of how a fantastic singer Johnny Gioeli is you will be convinced by this song cause it is just fantastic.
On Dark Waves Of The Sea which is also a 8 minute song you can listen to a great mixture of all instruments and how it all perfectly fit together. Burning Rain is pretty the same as Too Late and just a good song.
Nobless Oblige is a wonderful instrumental song. And the album ends with the beautiful The End Of Our Time that sucks you one last time into the music on this album.

Again this album is another masterpiece fill with wonderfull songs, beautiful guitarsolo’s which comes by in every song and a fantastic singer. If you know this band longer than you know that it is all not very original and that you get good quality music.
But to write after so many albums still a fantastic album like this is great.

Rating: 8,8/10

Tracklist:
1. Prelude Of Doom (Intro)
2. Too Late
3. Devil Zone
4. Prisoner Of Love
5. Dreaming Dead
6. Glory Night
7. Dark Waves Of The Sea (Oceans Of Time Pt. II: The Dark Side)
8. Burning Rain
9. Noblesse Oblige (Opus #5 Adagio Contabile)
10. The End Of Our Time

Band:
Johnny Gioeli – Vocals
Axel Rudi Pell – Guitars
Volker Krawczak – Bass
Mike Terrana – Drums
Ferdy Doernberg – Keyboards

Links:
Axel Rudi
Myspace