Band:	Overload
Album:	The Procession Of Tartaros
Style:	Heavy metal, Power metal
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Bas

01. Prelude
02. Six Days In Hell
03. Blood Hymn
04. The Procession Of Tartaros
05. Metal Dog
06. Walk Alone
07. Tears Are Falling
08. Dream Disaster
09. King Of Pain
10. Gagged In Fire
11. Angel

Overload is a Swedish threesome that already started out in 1987, but made a big break between 1995 and 2006. After their break they released a record of CDs already recorded in 1994 -1995 and now in both 2007 and 2008 they released an album with completely new material. For a review of the other "new" album go here: [url= http://www.metalstorm.ee/pub/review.php?review_id=6130]The Dark Side Of Ambition review[/url].

In 2008 The Procession Of Tataros saw the light of day. With a naked demoness gracing the purple coverart I was curious as to what these Swedes would have in stock for me, heavy metal? Power metal? Oldschool? Newschool? After quite a number of spins I should say there's a bit of all four of those on here. Probably it can be most accurately described as heavy power metal, mostly in an oldschool style but with some 'modern' elements thrown in, for example the modest use of keyboard throughout the album.

Another description for their sound would be a mix between old Metallica and Grave Digger. With that you should pretty much know what they sound like, as the vocals are really a perfect blend of Hetfield (Kill 'em All/Ride The Lightning era) and Chris Boltendahl of Grave Digger. The riffing is mainly heavy power metal but there are also some pure heavy metal riffs (partly reminiscent of Judas Priest) and some thrashier guitar parts (a la Metallica and Pantera). Drumming is usually midtempo and also seems to be influenced by the aforementioned bands.

A big pro of this CD is that the band really managed to get some variation between songs on this album. Some of the songs are power metal while others, like "Walk Alone" are almost pure thrash metal. Or on "Tears Are Falling" the vocalist manages some great melodic parts, with a much greater emotional voice than I would have expected from him judging by the other songs, he really got me by surprise the first time I heard this track! "Dream Disaster" starts with a keyboard part that reminds me of science fiction movies with alien abductions and all that kind of stuff, but it sounds really good and is generally one of my favourite tracks on the album! "Blood Hymn" on the other hand rather seems to convey a bit of a "viking" sound. The ending track "Angel" is a great piece of neo-classical guitar work. All in all this is a really varied album despite that it always sticks to its sound and that's a great thing!

With this album they also released a small DVD containing professionally produced music videos for "Dream Disaster" and "The Procession Of Tataros" as well as a live recording of "Walk Alone". These videos can be watched on the band's official homepage.

All in all The Procession Of Tataros is a pretty good album in my opinion. Although not all the tracks are just as good (for example "King Of Pain" is rather filler material) the CD as a whole is very solid. It has some variation and shows that the musicians clearly know what they're doing, especially the guitarist who has a few very good solos. If this sounds like something for you, go for it! You really can't go wrong with this guys.

Favourite track: Dream Disaster