Band:	Benedictum
Album:	Seasons Of Tragedy
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	January 25, 2008
A review by:	Jeff

01. Dawn Of Seasons (Instrumental)
02. Shell Shock
03. Burn It Out
04. Bare Bones
05. Within The Solace
06. Beast In The Field
07. Legacy
08. Nobody's Victim
09. Balls To The Wall [Accept cover]
10. Steel Rain
11. Seasons Of Tragedy
12. Catch The Rainbow [Rainbow cover] [limited edition bonus]

I love US Heavy Metal and I love the fact that the bands from this country always try to play an aggressive, with thrashy riffs, and not only some kind of melodic stuff that you find in Europe. With the second album of Benedictum I can tell you you'll not be disappointed if you like powerful and thrashy Heavy, "Seasons Of Tragedy" is a really good release and confirms all the hopes that we got with their first release. Benedictum is a good band and if you don't know them yet be sure that you'll have a look on their two albums to understand what I mean!

The good point of "Seasons Of Tragedy" is that this album perfectly combines groove and violence. Ok of course the new Benedictum is not an album of Thrash Metal but if you just have a look on a song like "Shell Shock" or "Burn It Out" you'll quickly understand that "Seasons Of Tragedy" is really far away of the Europeans releases. We have good catchy melodies in the album but that's not all, the riffs are strong and powerful and the rhythms (in general?) are fast and addictive. One more time the voice of Veronica Freeman is more than convincing, she is a real singer of Heavy Metal and she is probably better than a ton of guys who use to sing in the category. What I want to say here is that Veronica will never (and can't) be labeled as a "female singer", she is a singer of Heavy Metal that's all, and of course she is good to do that.

The album has a lot of guest musicians: Craig Goldy (Dio), Georges Lynch (ex Dokken), Manu Schmidt (Grave Digger), and finally Jeff Pilson (Dokken, Foreigner) who is also the producer of "Seasons Of Tragedy". The sound of the release is really good and the performances of all the musicians are excellent (you'll see the guitars soli are just great!). The band has even recorded a cover of the legendary "Balls To The Wall", it's well done for sure but will never be better than the original song anyway. The only little problem for me with this release is that some songs ("Bare Bones", "Steel Rain") are a bit too slow, too "mid-tempo" and even if they're not bad, they're a bit dull when you compared them with the best songs of the album ("Shell Shock", "Burn It Out", "Nobody Victims"; "Legacy"?). This is not really problematic in the end, these songs are good too but not so groovy and "in your face" than some others!

"Seasons Of Tragedy" is a good album of Heavy Metal. Full of potential hits this release is groovy as hell and will be convincing for all the ones who like to listen to classy Metal. This is maybe not perfect but for sure it should be the way for Benedictum to become famous. After a good start two years ago, Benedictum is back and I can only recommend to you this new release. Benedictum must be considered now as a serious contender for the title of best surprise in the Heavy Metal category.