Band:	Easy Rider
Album:	Animal
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	2003
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Visions
02. Chasing Demons
03. Casting The Shadow Of Sin
04. Animal
05. Sacrifice
06. Walls Of Hatred
07. Neverworld
08. Suddenly
09. Watch Your Step
10. Future Kill
11. A New Day
12. The Dream Lives on

A quite new Heavy Metal act from Spain. Let me know if that's not the kind of "news" many of us never give a thought.
And I guess many have does that against Easy Rider too, not because they are bad, just because they music and the country.
As we know, Spain (and Italy) is well known as countries that are having big problems with the English, as their accent is a bit funny.
But Easy Rider has a great solution for that, hire an American singer, as simple as it sounds, and then that problem was solved.

Easy Rider was formed in 1990 (already), by Daniel Castellanos (Guitars), the two brothers Javier (Guitars, Vocals) & José Villanueva (Bass) and Antonio Chaves (Drums).
Firs album was recorded and released in 1997, "Perfecta Creación", here they had recruited a real singer, Eugenio Garañeda.
Their second album, "Lord of the Storm" was released in 1998, here Easy Rider decided to sing in English, to have a chance on the international market too.
And so their third album was released in 2000, "Evilution", witch also became the last with the duo Eugenio & Antonio.
Ron Finn (the American singer) and Rafa Díaz (Drums) joined and recorded the forth Easy Rider album, "Regeneration" in 2001.
And now, or back in 2003, their fifth album reached us, "Animal".

But even after 5 album, Easy Rider is a very unknown band, at least outside Spain (Can't tell you how big they are there home), and if it's because their music I doubt, these guys have potential and this piece of plastic isn't that bad. Sure, it's not the most original album ever, but it's still worth listening on.

"Animal" contains 12 tracks of a nice Heavy Metal (sometimes mixed with some Power elements and even some Hardrock elements), the music is a quite hard story, it's very bass orientated, with that I mean that the bass has a very important role in the game.
And so has the solo guitar, that's sometimes sounds like Alternative Rock guitar, Johan Randén (the young Swedish guitar-"hero" is keeping popping up in my head, the similarities is to alike not to be mention), but the music is Heavy Metal, not Alternative in any way.

The albums rips of with the Hardrock smelling Heavy Metal piece, "Visions", and the following "Chasing Demons" (Which is one of the albums best tracks) the Hardrock ooze is pushing back a inch and the Power Metal touches is mixed in.
And the rest of the songs follow a quite the same recipe, except the final track, a 9minute long Speedy/mid-tempo/ballad song called "The Dreams Lives on" (cliché), that's a nice ending of a decent album. (And with decent I mean a good album but unfortunately not original).

Favourite Songs: "Chasing Demons" & "Suddenly".