“M.W.N.D. (Metal Will Never Die)”

Reviewed by Dylan Raine

Artist: ATHLANTIS
Album: M.W.N.D. (Metal Will Never Die)
Label: IceWarrior Records
Release Date: 15 June 2012

1. Madness Is Rising
2. Getaway
3. The Final Judgment
4. Strong as Your Love
5. Faraway
6. Dry Gin
7. Lightning
8. One Man, One Look, One Desire
9. Again You
10. Holy Call
11. Faraway (acoustic version) [Bonus track for IceWarrior Edition]

Italian Power Metal band Athlantis are back with their second album “M.W.N.D. (Metal Will Never Die)” which combines almost too typical power metal without any really interesting elements that keep people hooked throughout. With the few intricate and almost delicate little phrases in the breaks before the extensive soloing is very much desired, yet it lacks too many great aspects for a powerful album. In the first song there is a mix of some interesting riffs and a solo which is so like Joe Satriani in almost every way, but apart from that it really lacks definition.

As you go through the album, riff by riff there are some heavy passages and no doubt about it these are talented musicians but the mix entirely is just not doing it for me. It could be the fact it sounds like it was mixed in a bathtub, or at the bottom of a well. The constant use of the wah/wah gets boring after a few songs and like the rest of the album I feel almost too compelled to turn it off.

If you enjoy a good ballad take a listen to “Faraway” with the most exotic solo complementing this mix between the male and female vocals is quite a pleasant song to hear in this album, and very unusual at the same time. Somewhere I feel the band got lost as they entered “Dry Gin” although a very good song it doesn’t seem to fit in this album especially as when you hear the next pounding track “Lightning” you’ll notice the oddities.

Overall, I wasn’t really over impressed with this album at all, and yet there are still a few good things going for it that you do notice in certain places such as the extensive use of effects, synths, pads, powerful and ballad vocals, and not forgetting the intensive solos which take you a little further than Malmsteen, almost to the point of excitement.

ATHLANTIS Line-up 2012:
Steve Vawamas (SHADOWS OF STEEL, MASTERCASTLE, TRAGEDIAN) – bass & keyboards
Jack Spider – vocals
Pier Gonella (ex LABYRINTH, SYNTHPHONIA SUPREMA) – guitars
Enry Sydoz – drums

Special Guests:
Alessio Calandriello – lead & backing vocals in track No 3 and backing vocals in all tracks
John William Tudor – lead & backing vocals in track No 6 and keyboard on track No 10”
Gianfranco “Pino” Puggioni – all guitars in track No 5
Giorgia Gueglio (MASTERCASTLE) – lead & backing vocals on track No 5 and track No 9 and backing vocal in all tracks