Band:	Vhäldemar
Album:	Fight To The End
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	2002
A review by:	Malcolm

01. The Black Beast
02. Energy
03. Feelings
04. Lost World
05. Old King's Visions (Part I)
06. Number
07. 7
08. The Helmet Of War
09. Fight To The End
10. Traitor
11. Vhäldemar

Do you like "Gamma Ray" and Kai Hansen? No, well, then you can stop reading right now, 'cause this isn't something for you.
Yes, then this maybe is the release of year, 2002, closer to "Gamma Ray" and Mr. Hansen can't a band get.
This is the debut album of these rocking Spanish guys, with the guitarist Pedro J. Monge and the Kai Hansen alike singer (And guitar player) Carlos Escudero.
That man got the most Hansen alike voice I ever heard, and he is doing a great job and I guess that he will work with his voice and develop it even more in the future and maybe on the next record we will hear a "new" Carlos. 'Cause he won't live long if he just copying Hansen, he must develop his voice is "Vhäldemar" wants to take the next step, they have the talent to do that.

Pedro J. Monge created "Vhäldemar" in the end of the 90's together with the singer and guitar player Carlos Escudero.
Oscar Cuadrado joined soon and last did the more experience drummer Edu Martínez.
They recorded a three-track demo and got a contract from Arise Records.
Someone can way they where lucky, to get a contract so fast, but I should say that they are so talent that they got the contract, 'cause is isn't one of all dozen band, this is a real talent one, maybe little to much "Gamma Ray" on this one to be called a eccentric band, but the talent mark, no one can take from them.

This is a hard and fast album, it's very few slow part on it, and sometime I can even smell "Manowar", the song "7" if I shall take an example. It sounds like a much harder and faster version of a "Manowar" song.
Sometimes there is a darker voice that really fits into the concept on the one, like a storyteller voice, (sometimes is singing along with Carlos) and it's better than many voices that band have today, one worst than the other.
But is you listen to the intro in the first track "The Black Beast", it fits damn well.

And the cover is a really nice one, made by the master (?) Jean-Pascal Fournier, (He made cover for bands like, "DragonForce", "Orphan Gypsy", "Crystal Eyes" and "Edguy" (The Savage Poetry)), even if the cover not really fits the music, I can't complain about it.

This is a really solid album, in the Melodic genre, it's full of energy, that really shall please all you "Gamma Ray" fans out there and I think that this band only can grow from this part and become bigger, put let's hope that the nest release will be more eccentric, 'cause this "Gamma Ray" alike won't hold the whole way, even if I like it a lot.
I really looking forward to the next release of "Vhäldemar" and I hope that they have develop like they need.


Killing Songs: Hard on this one, they aren't any bad songs on it, and all of them are pretty in the same division. But "Energy" is really cool, very "Gamma Rayish", song.