Band:	Manimal
Album:	Trapped In The Shadows
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	November 20, 2015
A review by:	Belegûr

01. Irresistible
02. March Of Madness
03. The Dark
04. Trapped In The Shadows
05. Invincible
06. Man-Made Devil
07. Silent Messiah
08. The Journey [feat. Udo Dirkschneider]
09. Screaming Out
10. Psychopomp

Manimal. When I first heard this name, I realised it was one of the worst band names I'd ever heard. There was a TV show in the 80's called 'Manimal' about a shape-shifter who would help the police solve crimes and it was as bad as it sounds. I'll give them some credit though; at least their name doesn't involve hammers or dragons. What Manimal gives us is another band who absolutely worship Rob Halford and Judas Priest in general. There's quite a few of those types of bands around and Manimal remind me of some of the biggest and most successful of those bands. Like the most successful ones, Manimal are able to deliver some quality heavy metal.

From the opener "Irresistible", I was immediately thinking of Primal Fear and to a lesser extent Iron Savior. Two bands who are not afraid to claim Judas Priest as their biggest influence. Manimal vocalist Samuel Nyman certainly has an impressive range on him and he is actually fantastic throughout Trapped In The Shadows. He sounds a lot like Ralf Scheepers, who in turn sounds a lot like Rob Halford. You can see where I'm going with this. Trapped In The Shadows is not an original and superb genre creating masterpiece. However, it absolutely oozes quality in every department. The production is excellent, with the drums absolutely pounding my ears when I was listening through my headphones. The guitar work is not technically astonishing, but certainly good enough to compliment the vocals. Some fitting synth work even makes an appearance in the background, reminding me of the more melodic power metal style of Iron Savior.

I can't stress this enough, the album is somewhat saved from an above average rating by a very impressive vocalist. There are even times where he briefly escaped the Ralf Scheepers style and was approaching the crystal clear clarity of ex Lost Horizon vocalist Daniel Heiman, especially on tracks like "Silent Messiah" and "March Of Madness". So if you are a sucker for some falsettos that require your scrotum to be neatly tucked inside your stomach, then you have to give Trapped In The Shadows your full attention. The title track standing out as perhaps the go to track for introducing you to Manimal; huge vocals, catchy riffs and more hooks than a tackle box.

If Rulebreaker from Primal Fear wasn't around, I'd probably argue that Trapped In The Shadows would be the best Primal Fear album in recent years. Perhaps a little disrespectful to Manimal who obviously have some real talent. This is great German style power metal from Sweden and overlooking the obvious lack of originality, tracks like "Invincible", "Irresistible" and "Trapped In The Shadows" were just too enjoyable to criticise.