Band:	Rebellion
Album:	Miklagard: The History Of The Vikings Volume II
Style:	Heavy metal, Power metal
Release date:	February 23, 2007
A review by:	Baz Anderson

01. Vi Seglar Mot Miklagard
02. Sweden
03. Free
04. On The Edge Of Life
05. Ulfberth
06. The Rus
07. Kiew
08. Aifur
09. Taste Of Steel
10. God Of Thunder
11. Our Backs To The Wind
12. Miklagard
13. The Uprising

The second part of "History Of Vikings" story and let me tell you, this is a cracker of an album. When you hear a band so heavy and true you know that they will have fallen out of the seemingly copious nest of emerging German bands. Rebellion give us their taste of steel in the form of a very heavy style of power metal much in the same style of the Iced Earth of past years.

After an almost folkish style introduction track "Vi Seglar Mot Miklagard", we are lead into the meat of the album with "Sweden", a great stomping introduction to the main meat of the album but we are not at the best material yet. "On The Edge Of Life" is, besides the last track, the longest on the album and is by far one of the most epic as well. "Ulfberth" picks up the pace once more, a more frantic song about an Ulfberth sword, one of the supposed first all steel swords made. I could go along and name something good about each track but I will try and restrain, this does however confirm that this is a great album that has nearly everything you would want to hear in a heavy metal album.

We have songs to sing or chant along with like "Taste Of Steel" which is probably the best track on the album with thundering drums and great air punching material, faster songs for example "Aifur" and "Back To The Wind", epic songs as well as good thumping stompers of songs like "The Rus" and "Kiew", we also have a lovely memorable slower track, the title track "Miklagard" and of course also this a good history lesson in a way as the title suggests.

This is an all round fantastic album, it is produced very well to enhance the thundering drums, heavy guitars and the noble, gritty singing of Michael Seifert. It is of good, healthy length clocking in at just over an hour of grand material. The earlier Iced Earth material will always come to mind when you listen to this album, the band don't seem to make any drastic leaps towards any crazy new original ideas, but that is not so much of an issue if you like your heavy metal powerful, strong and to the point.

If the band carry on like this they may just, deservedly so, catch the attention of vast numbers of people and gain the allegiance of all the old school Iced Earth fans and just generally thumping heavy maniacs alike. With an album like this you can't ask for anything more than what we already have. It is that simple, if anything I have written caught your attention then you must listen to this album, you will love it.