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Vescera: Beyond The Fight
Vescera Beyond The Fight CD Album Review

Vescera: Beyond The Fight

Heavy/Power Metal
3.0/5.0

Website (Label)
Pure Steel Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 31.03.2017

A Michael Vescera album hasn't crossed my desk in some time. The last item was 2008's The Sign Of Things To Come. It's not that he hasn't been busy. There's the Animetal tribute band, and lately the Disney version, D-Metal. Then there's the legion of bands where he dropped in on vocals, including Sovereign, Fatal Force, Warrion, and Dramatica, to name a mere few.

Vescera Band Photo

Vescera

Now Vescera returns with his name on the cover of the album, Beyond The Fight. This edition of Vescera is essentially Vescera plus the Italian heavy metal band Nitehawks. They have one album of their credit, 2015's Vendetta, a record of traditional heavy and power metal. And so now you know what Vescera is playing as well, yet with some difference. Beyond The Fight sounds like a modern, bolder and more edgy, version of his early work with Obsession, the band that launched his vocal career. Additionally, in the overall metal timbre and tone, this work reminds me of the recent Doppelganger album from Sunless Sky, another Pure Steel labelmate. The similarities are brash and brisk riffage, oodles of guitar solos, a thundering deep rhythm section, and plenty of swift pacing. Then there's Vescera's clean and strong heavy metal vocals basically trying to rise above and keep ahead of the roaring power metal. In this sense, that is the weakness of Beyond The Fight as somebody didn't get the mix and mastering correct. You've heard of those old sci-fi B-movies like Earth vs The Flying Saucers or Godzilla vs The Sea Monster? Beyond The Fight is like Vescera vs The Crush of Furious Power Metal. Returning to my comparison to the Sunless Sky album, vocalist Juan Ricardo sounds so much better on that recording.

Nevertheless, if you like storming riffage, blistering guitar solos, and a thumping rhythm section, all wrapped up in stampeding power metal, and you also don't give a damn about the vocals, Vescera's Beyond The Fight will be your shot of bourbon. Me? I think Michael Vescera got the short straw in this draw.

Vescera - Looking For Trouble




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The Bottom Line

If you like storming riffage, blistering guitar solos, and a thumping rhythm section, all wrapped up in stampeding power metal, and you also don't give a damn about the vocals, Vescera's Beyond The Fight will be your shot of bourbon. Me? I think Michael Vescera got the short straw in this draw.

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