Innerwish - No Turning Back
Ulterium Records
Melodic Heavy/Power Metal
12 songs (54:34)
Release year: 2010
Innerwish, Ulterium Records
Reviewed by Vrechek

Have you heard any song by Dream Evil or Hammerfall? Are you at all knowledgable about the recent resurgence of Heavy/Power Metal bands that have been sprouting up all over Sweden and a few other countries? Then you probably know what to expect with Greek band InnerWish's newest album No Turning Back. I was drawn in by the rather bleak-looking artwork, album title, and song names hoping for dark and brooding Power Metal. To some extent I was right, however this is an album deeply rooted in the cheesy, euphoric Heavy/Power tradition of Manowar.

While you might accuse InnerWish of having little to no orginality, and you would be correct, that is not to say that all the 12 songs and 55 minutes of this album are samey. While most of the tracks use rather similar song structures, each is easily identifiable from one another making the slightly long running time less dulling to the senses, not to mention that there is plenty of riffing, shredding, and soloing to sink your teeth into. This ain't no Flower Metal; synth use is relegated to occasional background effects or intro/outro material. The guitars and vocals are the star of the show here. A nice crunchy guitar tone with a wicked low-end provided by the drums and bass make what is otherwise a quite slick and clean production pretty ballsy.

Speaking of vocals . . . Well, they're Manly Power Metal vocals. You probably know what to expect. Crooning, shrieks, anthemic singing, the occasional fruity melody, all delivered through retardedly cheesy lyrics. Now I normally don't give two shits about lyrics, but when they're so in your face like this they factor into my opinion of the vocals. But really, go check out the lyrics for Chosen One and try not to laugh from the cliche storm.

My favorite tracks on here are the ones that don't get too silly and try to stick with the dark thing they've got going. Sirens is pretty hauntingly badass, No Turning Back is for the most part pretty cool save for the little synth that plays during the chorus which gets on my nerves, and Kingdom Of Our Prime is simultaenously majestic and gritty. Some of the dumber songs are the aforementioned Chosen One and Full of Lust which, besides having a moronic name, sounds like an attempt to un-keyboardify Sonata Arctica and uses the word "rainbow" too much. While the album does get better on second or third listen, pretty soon you'll have all of the songs memorized and you'll quickly get bored.

While No Turning Back does a lot of things well, it still is just another dime-a-dozen Power Metal album with little to differentiate itself. The lack of replayability also makes this just OK. If you really really dig this kind of Metal, you'll likely find more to like than I, but for everyone else, you're not missing too much if you pass it up.

Killing Songs :
No Turning Back, Sirens, Kingdom Of Our Prime
Vrechek quoted 70 / 100
Other albums by Innerwish that we have reviewed:
Innerwish - Silent Faces reviewed by Marty and quoted 70 / 100
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