Band:	Cans
Album:	Beyond The Gates
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	2004
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Fields Of Yesterday
02. Soul Collector
03. Red Light
04. Back To Hell
05. Beyond The Gates
06. The Key
07. Garden Of Evil
08. Merciless
09. Silent Cries
10. Dreams
11. Signs
12. Forever Ends

I don't think there is a Metal fan out there that's never heard of Joacim Cans, singer in the Swedish Power Metal band HammerFall, it would be a sensation is someone hasn't heard of him.
So a closer presentation isn't needed here, so I skip it.

You'll not get a presentation, but you'll get some history, big difference right? Hehe.
As singer in HammerFall, Joacim have sold over 1 million albums and saved almost the whole Metal World.
He also got 2 gold albums and has been nominated to three grammisar (Swedish music price).
Besides this, he newly got his first child, in the same time that HammerFall have taken a little "break", Joacim have used his time to gather some famous artists and recorded a solo-album.
With him, he got no less than Mat Sinner (Sinner, Primal Fear) on Bass, "Metal" Mike Chlasciak (Halford) on guitars, Stefan Elmgren (HammerFall) on Guitars and Mark Zonder (Fates Warning) on drums, if that's not a "super-group" then tell me.

But before you whether celebrate of just shake your head, you have to understand that this isn't some kind of "mini-HammerFall" that we get. The music is darker and not so Powerish as HammerFall, so I think this might be liked by a greater crowd than HammerFall's music does today.

The material is mostly written by Joacim himself (Lyrics), "Metal Mike" and Ronny Milianowicz (Drummer in the Sweden's Dionysus, and formerly in Finnish Sinergy), but the last song, "Forever Ends" is actually written by no other than Jeff Waters (and Mr. Murphy) from Annihilator.

Even if it's hard not to draw parallels to HammerFall since Joacim's voice is so associated with just HammerFall, he is sometimes sings in a lower register than he does in HammerFall.
But overall, it's easy to recognize Joacim, and that's both good and bad, since he with his voice have difficulties to sound angry and mean, it's just to bright for that.
So vocally it's quite much HammerFall, of course, but musically there is a big difference, since the music is written by others than Joacim or the rest of HammerFall (except some song that Elmgren written) is written by others it's sounding a bit different from track to track.
And it's both harder and darker; there you got the explanation for that.

Charlie Bauerfeind is chosen as producer, and that can only end up in one way, production is awesome. But I have one wish that would have helped the album a little, they could have tried to make it even darker, but that's just a trifle, really.

If this were a concept album, I would have guess that the concept would be something like a battle between good an evil, or heaven and hell. Because in some songs, we have the hellish theme, and in the next, there is angels. The lyrics would be very funny to have, but unfortunately I don't have them.

Overall it's a very good album that I think will be more appreciated by people that find HammerFall a bit to Powerish. But I think real HammerFall fans will dig it too. There is something here for everyone, almost.

Favourite Songs: "The Key" is a song that I got I my head, the chorus is mighty, with catchy lyrics and wonderfull choir.
The songs like "Red Light", "Garden of Evil", "Merciless" & "Forever Ends" get my votes.