Band:	Heartcry
Album:	Lightmaker
Style:	Hard rock
Release date:	2005
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Battleground
02. Burn Out
03. Runaway Train
04. End Of Times
05. Lightmaker
06. Get Ready
07. Justice
08. Alone
09. Dark Side
10. Child

When I first read the name Heartcry, my thoughts was running against a more depressive way, a band in the Gothic scene, or in the worst case, Doom (I like both those genres, but I hoped that this album wasn't any of those).
But what I found was a band that has influences like old Judas Priest, Rainbow, Scorpions, Deep Purple and so on. A classic Heavy Hard Rock band in other words.

But hey, even if you see the "Christian" mark in the beginning, don't give up on this; remember the faith has nothing to do with Metal music. Even non-religious Metal heads can enjoy Christian music. I'm one of those.
And Heartcry does it great, their music is really catchy and it's hard not to like them.

But I have to say that it took some time before I started to like this album. From the beginning I thought it was way too simple and that there were no real talent in the band. But those thoughts I had to eat up, because after some spins I started to see why this band is signed and why they have released an album.
Their seventies/eighties oozing Metal is indeed quite simple, but it's still very well played, and the songs are better than you think after first spin.

Songs like the incredible good "End of Times" and the Kiss-oozing "Dark Side" (The riffing is a direct riff-off from "I Was Made for Loving You") stands for the best parts. And the strange "Get Ready" and the lack of originality will stand for the bad side.
About the production there's nothing to complain about, and the talent the band has is enough.

But the things that I think are against this band is that their music isn't original enough, in today's over-crowded Metal scene it's hard to really stand out. And unfortunately I think their religious thought will be against them, I think that's bad, we should care about the music, nothing else.

I really recommend you to check up Heartcry, this might not be a masterpiece, and I'm sure it won't win any prizes, but it's still a very good album, and I'm sure time will be Heartcry's best friend, they have all conditions to make it.

Check Out: "End of Times" and "Dark Side".