Album Review

Astral Doors - JerusalemAstral Doors – Jerusalem

Now here’s a band that’s had a lengthy career, “Jerusalem” not only marks their 6th studio album but also their 10 year anniversary together as a band. A decade put into their career and quite a few successful tours and festival appearances yet the band are still overlooked and relatively unknown here in the UK. The peak of my interest here is that having done a bit of research there are a lot of comparisons to Rainbow, especially the Dio-esque vocal comparisons.

Right from the word go with “Seventh Crusade” we’re thrown straight into the deep end with some crunchy heavy metal, these Dio comparisons are all confirmed within 10 seconds of the song starting. We have powerful songs with great riffs and vocals as well as some underlying keyboards to give it a fuller sound in “With A Strangers Eye”, “The Day After Yesterday” and “Child of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, but we also have a couple of low tempo epics with “The Battle of Jacobs Ford” and the title track“Jerusalem”.

After these tracks the rest of the album is a bit of a power metal fest that’s not quite as great, the songs are lacking in power and catchy little tweaks. I think if I had any advice it’d be lay off using speed for the sake of it as their lower tempo tracks and more heavy metal influenced songs are the best in this collection. For anyone who was a fan of Ronnie James Dio’s solo work and is quite partial to power metal I would highly recommend these guys.

3.5/5

Review by James Webb

 Band Members

Nils Patrik Johansson
Joachim Nordlund
Jocke Roberg
Johan Lindstedt
Ulf Lagerstroem
 Track Listing
1. Seventh Crusade
2. With a Strangers Eye
3. Child of Rock ‘n’ Roll
4. Pearl Harbor
5. Lost Crucifix
6. Babylon Rise
7. Suicide Rime
8. The Battle of Jacobs Ford
9. Operation Freedom
10. The Day After Yesterday
11. Jerusalem
 Band Related Links
Astral Doors Facebook
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?