The new Rebellion album (their fourth) is here and let me tell you something : its gonna rock your world. That is if you're a fan of bands like Grave Digger and Iced Earth (Something Wicked era). I didn't follow the band closely lately but it certainly feels like Rebellion changed singers. Michael Seifert is the ace the band needed to take off and fly on its own, able to defy the best bands in the genre, even the somewhat "godfather" band : Grave Digger.

Let me make a simple and bold statement, just so I lay things straight right away : Miklagard is easily better than Grave Digger's last offering ! In fact its the one of the best album in this style I've heard since Grave Digger's all mightly Excalibur ! Plain and simple. This album is a pure demonstration of epic Heavy Metal, mixing the VERY best of Grave Digger with some of the best moments and singing you can find in Iced Earth Something Wicked This Way Comes. Lead singer Michael Seifert is able to flawlessly make vocals in both these so very different style of singing (Grave / IE), and switch flawlessly from one to the other. Listening to Miklagard is like listening to a perfect fusion of the two previously mentioned bands, so you can imagine how powerful, melodic and heavy the result can be ! Well, to tell you the truth nothing Rebellion did before really caught my attention (that is to a point of listening to one of their albums over and over again !) even though I liked a few songs from the debut album, I really thought that guitar player Uwe Lulis had actually made a mistake leaving Grave Digger's rank. This opinion of mine changed with the birth of a new killer album in the ranks of Epic Heavy Metal : that album is Miklagard ! Heavy to the bones, with cubic riffs, unstoppable rhythms, and an epic factor to be matched only by the sweet melodic releases of grand choruses like in the songs Sweden, Free, On The Edge Of Life,Ulfberth, Back To The Windor even Miklagard (non-exaustive list). The vocals are very reminiscent of Grave Digger for the most part , except they simply sound a tad less harsh, and overall smoother and better, especially the Iced Earth like parts that somtimes make you believe you're actually listening to Matthew Barlow himself !

This may not be the most original album you're heard, and the influences are more than obvious here, but when metal music is executed with such perfection, I most certainly am not gonna argue about the quality of the killer album that Miklagard is. The epic sensation of the year (so far), a pure jewel of heaviness and chorus melodies. Hail Rebellion ! If you don't know Rebellion yet, and if you enjoy the likes of Iced Earth and Grave Digger, then I can only urge you to run to your closest metal shop and pray they have a copy of Miklagard left for you. Thumbs up !