Mastercastle have been toiling away like a band of industrial German octopuses, this being their fifth album in six years. Impressive, granted, but like a multi-story minefield, sometimes too much of a questionable thing can blow up in your face.

In the world of metal there are basically three different ways an album can suck. The first way is describing something as nu metal (or metalcore) - all "true metalheads" will instantly hate it and proclaim that it isn't really metal at...