Iron Saviour – Megatropolis

(Dockyard 1 Records, 2007, 45 minutes, 34 seconds, Reviewed by Adam McAuley

We have here a power metal band that tries to stand within the constrictions of the type of music they're performing and thus remains very standard sounding and unable to distance themselves from the pack. One might want to compare them with a more pompous band within the genre such as Rhapsody and then we could see that perhaps Megatropolis deserves a bit of an adrenaline upgrade to reach the types of registers seen by that band, for example.

Iron Saviour perform a relatively straightforward power metal affair with the usual driving verses and catchy choruses seen by the genre, but they don’t have an interesting enough slant to be a necessary listen to fans of power metal because of their restricted sounds which are inviting, but not overly breathtaking enough.

Rapid fire riffing that tends to wants to imitate the likes of Helloween and Painkiller-era Judas Priest rapidly abounds on the album and they don’t hold quite the excitement and memorability those two bands do in particular making Iron Saviour just another power metal act rather than one that is to be followed and imitated upon.

The musical performances on Megatropolis follow the same outcome as much of the rest here. Everything is hectic enough to gain the listener’s interest to a certain extent, but they don’t carry enough weight to really excite on a higher plain. The guitar playing is decent as is the singing and drumming performances, but nothing is of very high caliber.

Lyrically, we can see Iron Saviour drawing on themes of the power of man overwhelming the scene and this causes for a comic book like view which, though appropriate, is not overly noteworthy and just makes for an enchanting way to enhance the overall thoughts on the album.

Standout tracks on the album include the final one "Farewell and Goodbye", which manages to brings things to a close with relative style and on an exciting enough note, but altogether Iron Saviour isn’t capable of stringing together a number of stellar tracks like some of the other bands mentioned which makes them lose interest at times.

Overall, Iron Saviour bring an album together that doesn’t hold enough of a special appeal to interest fans of the power metal genre as they go through similarly slightly cheesy sounding standard riffing without adding anything new to the genre or standing out in a way that’s spectacular enough to be particularly above mediocre.