Virgin Steele
give
Manowar
a run for their assless leather chaps with the cover art chosen for 2006's
Visions of Eden
, which features vocalist
David DeFeis
gazing toward infinity beside a coal-black Clydesdale and wielding the biggest darn sword you'll ever lay eyes upon. Incredibly, the dramatic music within suits this imagery 100-percent, only not with Dungeons & Dragons shenanigans, but with serious Old Testament stuff, as dictated by its title. Yes, roll your eyes if you must, but you still have to give this Long Island heavy metal institution some props for sticking to their guns (or, as it were, its swords) through thick and thin over the quarter-century discreetly marked by this, their 12th studio album. Not that there's anything quiet, meek, or subtle about
; in fact, its epic songs may amount to
's most ambitious album yet! While a few of the more uniform songs ("Immortal I Stand," "The Ineffable Flame") almost approach
DragonForce
velocity (aka "ludicrous speed"), far be it from
's gentlemen headbangers to confine themselves to rote power metal gimmickry. Instead, like
Savatage
on steroids, the colorfully named album standout "Adorned with the Rising Cobra," runs the gamut of intensity and emotion (the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat), weaving prominent and inventive keyboard orchestrations amidst the expected six-string overkill. And like
hoisting aloft a fine arts degree instead of medium-rare lamb shanks, the album-closing title track makes all this pomp and circumstance sound positively justified: refined, classy, regal. Meanwhile, the deceptively named "Angel of Death" is actually a melancholy ballad, and "God Above God" takes things one step further into quasi-AOR territory, admittedly making yet another late album softy, "When Dusk Fell," comparatively unwelcome. But even though
DeFeis
' histrionic performance (and rampant ego, hello!), with his
Freddie Mercury
falsettos on "Bonedust" and his agonized delivery on "Black Light on Black," can still land him in trouble now and then, they ultimately fit with the operatic theatricality and biblical subject matter within. Plus, let's face it, it's a little too late to expect
and his
bandmates to start apologizing for who they are. Rather, leave the apologizing to Adam, Eve, and the other merry characters populating
; after all, in metal as in battle -- unlike scripture -- there can be no regret! [A 22-track Deluxe Edition was released in 2017.] ~ Eduardo Rivadavia