Iron Mask
Black As Death

February 2012
Released: 2011, AFM Records
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Metal-Rules.com UK Team

Iron Mask are a Hard Rock/Neo-Classical/Power Metal band from Brussels, being the solo band of Dushan Petrossi (guitarist) with ex vocalist Goetz ‘Valhalla Jr’ Mohre contributing vocals, who has now been replaced with the well known Mark Boals. Having the two vocalists gives the album great melodic quality with an aggressive delivery, with guest vocalist Oliver Hartmann (ex-At Vance) adding vocals to 3 tracks: The Invisible Empire, Crystal Tears and Iced Wind Of The North (a duet with Mohre).



The recording of the lead and backing vocals as well as the featured choir arrangements were done at Hartmann’s ‘Alive Studio’ in Germany. The music was recorded in Brussels throughout 2003 and the first half of 2004 (in ‘Iron Kingdom’ studio, and ‘Galasse’ studio). The whole album has a strong ‘feel good’ and strong emotion aspects throughout and I really liked the intro to this album, giving it a great atmosphere before the guitars and drumming kicked in for track 2 with the strong vocals kicked in with a whole choir joining in, making this a rather dramatic start to the album.



Despite some songs being weaker than others, making me want to skip to the more powerful tracks, each song is different and have some interesting intro’s and it’s no doubt Iron Mask have a great sound to them. The album is produced really well, with some amazing and impressive guitars and drums, but the lyrics/song-writing are the only letdown for me with this album, making it unoriginal and slightly cliché sounding, which is a shame cause the music is just totally epic!



If you love your power metal then I’m sure you will love this album.



Review by Jo Blackened