Metal Reviews

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This one took a while to grow on me and even with that said I still prefer Invictus and The House of Atreus albums over this one. There is something about the epic nature and direction that Virgin Steele took that made them stand out a bit more than the more generic sounding heavy metal bands.

This is a good one, but I prefer other VS albums to this one... actually most VS albums. However, this does have one of the best songs ever written on it. "CRY FOR POMPEI!!!"

Its good to see Virgin Steele get any kind of atention as they are oft overlooked. I agree that this isn't the best VS album, as I too tend to prefer the more epic Invictus and House of Atreus albums, but this album is real solid and alot more "fun" than those epic albums. THis album does contain its share of epic metal with the Serpents Kiss and does it great, with a similarity to Manowar's Demons Whip. You really cant go wrong with this album. It doesnt dissapoint.

Great album, maybe not their most consistent but the great tracks are some of the best Virgin Steele has ever written, "Perfect Mansions" has to be the best VS ballad ever and thats saying a lot, We Are Eternal is also a killer track.

As the Virgin Steele back catalog seems to have been re-issued and re-packaged recently, this one caught my eye in the rack and I picked it up based on this review and the comments.

This is actually the first Virgin Steele disc I have ever heard (so not a virgin steele virgin anymore!) and I so you can imagine that I have a lot of David Defeis' memorable music running through my head as it slowly sinks in I was missing a Savatage-sized chunk of metal all these years.

The Burning of Rome is indeed an amazing song, seeing that live would be very sweet. Even hair-metal-like songs like 'Seventeen' I just can't get out of my head .. this disc really has it all from epic (Perfect Mansions) to sleazy (Seventeen) to 80's rock (Tragedy) to scorching heavy metal (Lion in Winter). Even a Judas Priest cover thrown in for good measure.

If this generally isn't considered their best, I look forward to checking out the rest of their catalog. My only complaint is that some of the intro synths sound a bit cheap.

BTW, disc 2 of the re-issue has some good stuff on it, but mostly piano ballads. A nice bonus.