Band:	Arès
Album:	About Metal
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	November 14, 2009
A review by:	Jeff

01. Perchance To Dream
02. Burn and Die
03. Spartan
04. Moonless Night
05. Virtue Of The Weak
06. About Metal
07. The Art Of Hypocrisy
08. Echec

Ares plays metal and if you don't believe me, you just have to look at the name of their first album, About Metal, or even check the number of bands which have the same name to understand that we're into the land of cliché! Bad or good, this is just a matter of taste but if you're just looking for classic power metal, let's say that you shouldn't be disappointed by this release, or at least that you'll find some good songs for you.

Ares plays heavy power metal, their music is not terrible but it's classic to death and the album can be quickly boring if you're not a die-hard fans of the genre and don't need to be surprised when you buy an album (after all, why not?). The singer, Damien Gaudois, an sings with really high pitched vocals a la King Diamond or Manowar. He is not so bad and the songs aren't ridiculous but do you have a real interest to buy an album of an unknown French band when it can be easier to find classics of the genre in every CDs shops on Earth? I don't know maybe that some of you are still looking for rarities and in that case this is obvious that Ares is not a mega commercial combo but even if their music remains correct, with all what you need to find in a heavy power metal release (guitars solos, good riffs and catchy choruses) there is nothing new here and this is sad.

As I told you already, About Metal clearly suffers of the fact that it's just too cliché. The lyrics and music are cliché, the name and titles are cliché, the production is cliché, just have a look at the cover artwork and you'll see what I mean. Why, seriously, why a majority of bands which play heavy metal just want to follow trends? Can't they be a bit original sometime, seriously? Manowar is Manowar, and we don't need to have other bands like that.

What can I add really? About Metal cannot be considered as a bad release but this is just too basic and cliché to be really entertaining. Sure we have some good songs here but I doubt that a lot of metalheads will want to lose their time to discover such sooooo classic bands? If you're someone who want to have everything of a genre ok, that's alright but if you're bored by classic releases without any real soul, sorry but go away, Ares will not bring any new sensations to your spirit. But after all, obviously these guys just wanted to do good old heavy metal without any pretention I suppose, so after all, we cannot blame the guys to just do what they like to do!