The new releases of this nice melodic hard-rock holds some surprises... some good and some bad as well. Let's start with the good points :) ... Jean Beauvoir's voice is still as great as it was in the beginning of it's career (I still put on Voodoo X album from time to time). Musically it's like it's always been the case with the band, nice catchy melodies and nice chorus lines... but nothing thrilling and certainly not a song like The Healer, even though Heaven Tonight is a very good song with a great chorus (but it has been done thousands of time by any band, including Bon Jovi which created this style by the way). So here and there... nice songs, quiet a variety of songs actually... that makes me jump to analyze what I consider to be bad points. Well... Jean Beauvoir is making some experimentation on some tracks... using keyboard to create atmosphere that belongs to other style of music than metal, and frankly it doesn't sound like Crown Of Thorns... but bands have to evolve and sometimes they do change directions, but I would seriously recommend not to do it for this one, even though I'm forced to recognized that it is original, nevertheless it's never a good idea to mix metal with rap rhythms for example on track like Crying Game. This really reminds me of the changes that could be observed on Talisman's Humananimal, fortunately for C.O.T., they haven't changed too much, more like experimentation like I said. As always Crown Of Thorns made nice ballads like Lonely Is The Rose, Runaway or Heaven Tonight. The artcover is great and in the end this new album shouldn't disappoint Crown Of Thorns fans but won't make them crazy neither.