Ryder plays traditional hard rock and heavy metal influenced by the music of the late seventies and early eighties around bands such as W.A.S.P., Mötley Crüe or Ratt. While this first full length record is overall solid and contains some great hooks and enjoyable guitar solos, the band offers nothing but worship music that honours their idols. It's a good band for summer festivals and do a good job as opening acts but they are not unique enough to get a breakthrough.

Apart of some good average musicians it's especially the voice Bruno Girard that stands out. I have seen him life with several of his bands and he has done brilliant performances on difficult cover songs from legends such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. This man has a unique voice and has the skills to lead a more professional and ambitious band. On this present record, he sounds a little bit limited as if he had to sing under his abilities and there clearly is a waste of good talent here. Don't get me wrong, the record is okay and doesn't lack of passion but it lacks the certain special something that the singer could have added to this. Too many songs have a similar structure and sound quite alike. The songs are all around four minutes long and have the predictable verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure. Most of the songs are hold in a mid tempo pace. There are no speedy tracks and no real ballads to find on here.

The few times the band tries out something different, these tracks really stand out. "ZV13" is sung in French and has been done to promote a local film project. It's one of the more memorable tracks next to the solid opening title song "Lonely Road". The track "Most Wanted" contains some shy guest vocals that perform some growls but they are not energizing enough to fit the song or add a special note to it but it was worth a try.

In the end, this album is only recommended for people that want to support the young and rather unknown band and for those who want to have a little souvenir of one of the band's solid concerts. For anybody else, it's just another solid retro hard rock band out of many. They really need to vary more and focus on the potential of the good singer if they want to get a name and stand out. For a first effort, this release is still listenable and above average though.

Powervice are one of many retro heavy metal bands that are clearly influenced by the hard rock and emerging heavy metal music of the late seventies and the early eighties. They are as solid as genre colleagues such as Bullet, Vanderbuyst, White Wizzard and so on. The band only released one demo tape in 2005 but this could also be a tape from 1982 in the middle of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. They got a record deal but for some unknown reason they split up before they could bring out something promising. The guitar player of the band, Selim Lemouchi, later founded the occult blackened hard rock band The Devil's Blood with his sister and experienced a different kind of music. This band from the underground got some massive media support in the last years, especially by the German Rock Hard magazine and became unexpectedly more or less famous.

What we have here is very solid heavy metal that should please to the fans of bands such as Diamond Head, Iron Maiden or Shy. It's a perfect album for nostalgic hours and to hit the open road during summer time. I like the edgy and smoky vocals on this demo that adds a lot of energy and authenticity to the sound of the band that distinguishes them from other retro bands of the same genre. The music itself has also some changes of style as the atmospheric middle parts in "Nightstalker" and especially the diversified "The End Is Coming". Slower and almost doom passages are mixed with energizing up tempo metal parts in this great track. The discordant guitar tunes make me even think of some grunge influences. As you read this you may understand that this band could have made it very far and been one of the better bands of a worn out genre. They could have found their very own style and are already diversified and charismatic enough to convince on this short demo tape. Powervice surprised me in a positive way.

If you like good old heavy metal with some variety and edges and look for alternatives to your old records and the high amount of mediocre retro rock bands, this tape could be what you need and you should definitely check this out. The three songs really grew on me and left me wanting more. Heavy metal is still alive thanks to the unknown fallen heroes of the present days such as these guys from the Netherlands.

This album is another retro metal and hard rock record influenced by the music of the late seventies and early eighties that should please to young and old people and can permanently play on any rock and roll party, as soundtrack between two hard rock bands during a concert or festival or simply in your car when you hit the open road for summer time. White Wizzard are a really cool band. The vocals are melodic, slightly high pitched and very catchy. The guitar solos are melodic and have all necessary genre trademarks. The bass supports the guitars very well. The drumming is energizing and fits to the ensemble. This is a good alternative to your worn out record from Cloven Hoof, Diamond Head, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Marseille and so on. This band is surely a great live act, too.

Even though there's nothing wrong with this band, the four or five guys that recently lived many confusing line-up changes add nothing new to the genre and are just another retro metal band. This is a sad thing as they have the talent to do much better and maybe they'll one day find their very own style even if it's difficult to add something new the heavy metal genre nowadays. After some optimism in the beginning, the album gets worn out quite fast and has no true highlight besides the opening anthem and energizing title track "Over The Top" that also has a great video clip. The album goes nowhere and the lack of inspiration is underlined by the useless two cover versions in the end of the record that sound actually quite close to the originals.

Technically, this band has a lot of talent and I still like to listen to this record for special occasions. It's a great feel good record that has the capacity to put a smile on your face after all and let you have a trip to the past. Sometimes, one doesn’t need to always be progressive, experimental and avant-garde and this kind of down to earth record is healthy dose to our ears from time to time even if some originality and constancy is missing on here.

That's why my final rating is still quite positive even if the hype for this band is after all not justified. I hope these guys will carry on, get some stability in their line-up and evolve their skills and sounds. It's definitely already better than Vanderbuyst, Airbourne and all the other hard rock and heavy metal copycats out there.

As this old demo has been rereleased in late 2011, I decided to check the original release out first to get a good idea of what I could expect from the new release.

There are some strange things about this release that I need to mention. It's a live demo but you never hear a crowd. It's supposed to be recorded on Jonquière, Québec that has always been a region supporting the separatism movement of the Canadian province in the last decades and that tries to keep alive its French language and its cultural roots as they are isolated and surrounded by Anglo-Saxon cultures. Nevertheless, singer Denis "Bélanger" Snake is talking in English in front of the French crowd which simply doesn't make much sense. His comments seem to be somewhat random. Sometimes, he comments after many songs in a row but sometimes he doesn't say a word for a few tracks in a row. Especially the beginning of the record which could have needed some introducing words is completely free from comments, crowd animations or any live feeling whatsoever.

Another strange thing is what I saw on the cover of the rerelease of this live demo. A sticker tells us that this live demo has been recorded in a mining town in the Canadian north. This is completely wrong. Jonquière is not a mining town, it has been founded in 1847 and was based on agriculture and forest exploitation. Later, it hosted the largest aluminum plant in the world owned by Rio Tinto Alcan but there are no mines in the city itself. This town is also definitely not in the Canadian north. It's a few hours in the north of the big cities Montréal, Québec and Sherbrooke but it isn't part of the regions Côte Nord or Nord-du-Québec that are close to Labrador and Newfoundland that host some important mines. I also read in a recent interview concerning the release of the band's latest live record "Warriors Of Ice" that the band members said it was recorded in their "home town". That's once again wrong. It was recorded in Montréal and not in Jonquière or the city of Saguenay that contains today the old cities of Jonquière, Chicoutimi and La Baie among several small villages. I ask myself if the band members have forgotten where they come from or if their management thinks that their fans are stupid and only know about the city of Montréal in Québec. Now you have learned about the history and culture of Québec and Voivod’s origins.

Anyway, let's talk about the music now. This release contains tracks from the upcoming first two releases of the band that are "War And Pain" and "Rrröööaaarrr" as well as cover version of the bands Venom and Mercyful Fate.

The great thing is that this demo release has even more energy than the studio records. I especially like Snake's vocals as they sound way more natural as on the first studio efforts. The bass is more prominent on this release as on some later releases, take "Black City" as a great example. The guitar solos and sounds are already completely unique and stunning; a very good example might be the band classic "Nuclear War" on this demo. The drums are all the way energizing. Take the solo of "Black City" or the unforgettable opening of "Warriors Of Ice" as great examples. The band already mixes aggression and grace in a perfect way on this release.

It has a raw sound which you can hear during the short pauses between the songs that include background noises but the tracks themselves sound very great and you can clearly identify each instrument. The quality is fairly better than it is on the live demo "Morgoth Invasion" released in the same year.

I also like the unreleased and very atmospheric interlude "Negatations" that adds some atmosphere and leads to a cover version of Venom. A very positive element is that the cover version really fit to the sound of Voivod. If I wouldn't know these bands, I would never think these weren't Voivod songs.

In the end, I prefer the energy, the diversity and the authenticity of this release over the first two studio records. This is an essential release to feel and understand the spirit of early Voivod. The band already shows all of its trademarks. You get all songs that are included on "War And Pain", some of the greatest songs of the second release, the exclusive bonus track "Condemned To The Gallows", one of my favourite songs from the band's early days, three great cover songs (especially the two Venom covers are amazing and in my opinion maybe stronger than the original tracks) plus an exclusive interlude. You really can't ask for more. Apart of the confusing atmosphere, there is not much to criticize on here. If you don't have much money, stop spending your time on trying to find rare and old copies of the first two studio releases and purchase this live demo in its original or re-mastered version. This record perfectly incarnates everything early Voivod are all about.

Textures is a quite strange band from the Netherlands that mixes melodic death metal in the key of the Goteborg school with bands such as Dark Tranquillity with quite modern thrash metal parts reminding me of Bullet For My Valentine with calm progressive and ambient elements and a few technical parts that recall bands such as Meshuggah. This strange mix sounds very weird at first try and the vocals don't really help and sound like a mixture of In Flames, Bullet For My Valentine and Rise Against. They are quite variable but maybe too diversified and not unique enough.

The good thing about this record is that it is quite unpredictable and surprising and has many chilling interludes and atmospheric changes of style as in "Young Man" or the interlude "Effluent". The band is able to put a high amount of creative ideas in a short amount of time, for example inside the strong opener "Swandive". The band gets to the point and still varies a lot within the running time of five minutes of this song.

It's because of these talents and abilities that I don't get why the band put two overlong tracks in the end of their record. "Polars" is still a great song but it could have been shortened a lot and I would have preferred to listen to three different tracks instead of one good song that goes slightly nowhere and has no truly epic character whatsoever.

The strangest thing is though the final "Heave". It's a purely instrumental ambient track without much variation that sounds like a mixture of krautrock meets space ambient music. Take "Phallus Dei" from Amon Düül II minus the strange vocal noises and add Senmuth's "3923 Seconds On Mars" instead and you get an idea what this song is about. This sounds weird and it is indeed. It's not a bad experiment but it doesn't fit at all with the rest of the album and literally feels quite alien on here. This is what I call experimental at all costs and this also explains the variations in the reviews for this somewhat confusing debut album.

These guys clearly have a lot of talent and many diversified and still coherent songs. But they should focus on their strengths, improve the vocals and dose their experiments in a more logical way. Nevertheless, this album somewhat intrigued me and I'm ready to check their other records out soon. I somehow encourage their courage but they should not go too far. For fans of experimental melodic death metal, this is certainly worth to be checked out and maybe also for open-minded avantgarde and progressive fans. Anybody else should not try this out as this is a very particular effort with some odd elements and many strong points on the other side.