Band:	Southern Cross
Album:	Rise Above
Style:	Progressive power metal
Release date:	2007
A review by:	Jeff

01. You Shall Be Damned
02. Never Dare Say
03. Fallen
04. Pale
05. The Third Gate
06. The World Was Just A Dream
07. By The Hands Of Fate
08. Rise Above

Southern Cross comes from Quebec City and "Rise Above" is the first album of this band from Canada. Even if it comes from the American continent, the combo plays a kind of European Power but with a lot of anger. Just imagine a mix of Stratovarius and Children Of Bodom and you can understand how the music of the band sounds.

Even if "Rise Above" is an album of Power, it's a bit original. The voice of the singer David Lizotte s a classic voice of Power/Heavy Metal (and a good one) but the music of Southern Cross, without forgetting its Power Metal roots it's a lot more aggressive than the majority of the band of the category. In fact, I could even compare it with the music of Children Of Bodom. It's fast, technical with some great guitars soli and yeah, the riffs are aggressive. Like with COB, the melodies are full of Keyboards lines which clearly have the same sound than the one of COB. "You Shall Be Damned", which is a really good song by the way, is a perfect introduction to the album and a great way to describe the music of "Rise Above". As I said before, just imagine the music of COB (without the frenetic soli of Alex Laiho) and add a classic Heavy Metal voice and you can understand how it sounds.

The production of the album is really good too. No problem with the recording and all the songs are complementary without being linear. The performance of the musicians is more than convincing, no really for a first album, it's a good start and I understand why Thundering Records chose to sign them. I can even tell you that we will hear about this band in a near future? you'll see?

"Rise Above" is a good debut album. I won't tell that it's the album of the year but in the category of Power Metal it's a good surprise. If you like this kind of music, please have a look on this album I can tell you that you'll not be disappointed. Southern Cross is a band that you'll have to follow seriously, obviously they're a great newcomer.