Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Edguy : "Hellfire Club", May 11, 2004
This is the best release Edguy has ever put their name on IMO. "Hellfire Club" is a masterpice, and I'm very impressed with it. The whole CD is full of power fom start to finish....
There are no fillers here. None. Edguy has really moved forward here, and this is a huge step towards greatness IMO. If you're not familiar with Edguy, I highly recommend "Hellfire Club" and "Theater Of Salvation" as the wonderful place to start....
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hell yeah!, June 11, 2004
This has been playing practically nonstop ever since I got it. It's one of the most fun and most polished metal albums I've heard in ages, and it's very refreshing.
Edguy wear their influences on their sleeves -- anybody who enjoyed Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, or Helloween at their peak will find a lot to like on this album. Hey, for my money, the outright Priest-worship of the opening track sounds way better than Priest ever did. But even if there's a lot of borrowing and a lot of tribute paid to the masters, Edguy have got their own sound and a whole lot of charisma that no other active band can match.
This album is stripped-down (the symphonic overkill of earlier albums is mostly gone), song-centered and a WHOLE lot less pretentious than other competitors in the current slew of prog/power-metal. It's definitely rock, not opera, and every song stands out, as was the case with Maiden at their peak. You get one epic (but not over-orchestrated) track, "The Piper Never Dies", which is good all the way through its 10 minutes and builds up to a crushing finish. Other standouts -- Mysteria, Under the Moon, King of Fools, and The Navigator, but really there's not a weak track on it.
Last thing: the album has a great sense of humor that very much reminds of Helloween (Dr. Stein, or Rise and Fall, for instance) and completely deflates any pretentiousness about the album. It's pretty nice -- too many bands in this genre are way over-inflated on self importance. Edguy cuts right through all the BS and delivers nothing more or less than a flat-out crank-it-up, sing-along-as-you-floor-it-down-the-highway good time.
Edit: OK, after many months of listening, I'm still in love with this album. And "The Piper Never Dies" has entered my pantheon of all-time great metal songs. It's that good.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Edguy's latest and greatest, September 6, 2004
Edguy's sixth record, Hellfire Club (2004) is their best record yet. Why? Because it shows that Tobi knows when a band has to evolve. Being a pretty big power metal fan, I do know of power metal bands who seem to run out of original ideas. On this record, Tobi, Dirk, Jens, "Eggi," and Felix have emerged with a sound that is fresh compared to the stuff portrayed on, say, Mandrake (2001), but not a RADICALLY altered sound, which is what ruins many great bands like Queensryche, Metallica, and Dio (though he quickly returned to his roots.) But anyway, the album is among my favorite albums from this year so far, maybe not quite as good as, say, Exodus's Tempo Of The Damned, but still very good.
And now, the key part of all my music reviews: the three highlights of the album. Track 2, "The Piper Never Dies," is an excellent haunting epic (10 minutes, 5 seconds.) Overall, opening track "Mysteria" just doesn't have the razor-edged finesse of "Piper Never Dies." Track 5, "King Of Fools," was the song that introduced me to Edguy after streaming it on the Nuclear Blast website, though not a frantic speed metal tune, it's still a great song, I even learned to play it on bass! And track 8, "Lavatory Love Machine," almost has a glam metal feel to it, it's also a hilarious video, I saw it on the Nuclear Blast Europe website. Overall, highly recommended for fans of Edguys's past releases, Kingdom Of Madness, Vain Glory Opera, Theater Of Salvation, Savage Poetry, and Mandrake. Also recommended for fans of Tobi's Avantasia project (god knows I love 'em!) as well as other German power metal bands, like Helloween, Gamma Ray, and Blind Guardian. Later fellow headbangers!
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