Band:	Crescent Shield
Album:	The Last Of My Kind
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	2006

01. Above Mere Mortals
02. Slaves To The Metal Horde
03. Rise Of The Red Crescent Moon
04. Burn With Life
05. The Last Of My Kind
06. North For The Winter
07. The Path Once Chosen
08. The Great Devoid
09. Unfinished Ashes
10. Await The Champion
11. The Passing

I know a lot of people who will praise this album as being the most amazing Metal recovering experience in a very long period of time. Crescent Shield is a band that takes all the characteristics of Traditional Power Metal and then?just plays them the same way. If were living in 1989 or so, I would have said "This is some boring stuff indeed", but many years later, after a ridiculous amount of bands filtered the original sound of Traditional Metal making it cheesy and repetitive, I can only say "This sounds really fresh and original indeed".

This debut album covers almost every meticulous demand of the old metal hordes, without the need of becoming cheesy or creepy on the way, these guys magically manage to talk about tacky subjects and still they sound very wicked, the exact same attribute that bands like Irion Maiden used to have. Musically, this piece is almost flawless; intricacy and strength distinguish this band while catchiness and promptness make this a very easy on the ear album, and then even the songwriting is so good that makes you stay for the entire extent (even though it's quite long for my taste).

"The Last Of My Kind" is the equivalent of someone throwing you a huge bucket of ice-cold water after a really hot and boring summer day; The songs have a really good freshening vibe, the guitars will make you remember the old metal days when everything was about head-banging and "Dio", the melodious parts will offer a resting segment for you to digest the complexity of the music and the whole structure will make you hear this album over and over again.

I recommend this album for every man filled with nostalgic thoughts in their head; if you don't mind a lousy production, this will fix your entire "homesick" symptom and you'll be head-banging again in your Dio and Iron Maiden wrapped room in no time.

Best Tracks: "The Last Of My Kind", "Above Mere Mortals", "The Passing"