Rebellion - Born Rebel (2003) - Drink and bang with your brothers of metal - 62% (27/01/11)

This album is until now the only Rebellion output that isn't based on any main topic and has no conceptual boundaries. That's why one should think that this might be their most diversified album where the band could have tried out everything they wanted to.

But instead of these expectations, "Born a rebel" is the band's weakest output by far. Let me explain you why.

First of all, the stereotypical cover already offers us a little glimpse at what lyrically is about to come. And this album fulfills all the stereotypes and offers songs that talk about being a rebel and being metal ("Born a rebel"), about being brothers and stand together ("One for all") or about metal music and its attitude or perception ("Devil's child"). The lyrics are not much more original than those of Manowar. And that's a really sad and ridicolous thing if I think about what great songwriters Tomi Göttlich and Uwe Lulis are.

The second negative point is the music itself. After only three songs, the band begins to repeat the same patterns and sounds like a stereotypical Teutonian metal band in the key of Grave Digger and company. Hard rocking riffs, epic and harsh choruses and a very charismatic and unusual voice lead through the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus patterns and miss out to surprise us. "Born a rebel" or "Adrenaline" are quite decent heavy metal or even hard rock songs without the glimpse of a doubt but most of the songs head in the same direction and the normally decent music gets quite fast boring and predictable.

The best and outstanding song is the ballad "Iron flames" where Michael Seifert delivers an incredibly emotional job and shows us his true talented that is only briefly shown in the other repeating patterns. He shows that he is one of the best of its kind and his high screams remind me of a Tim "Ripper" Owens. He is surely better than Chris Boltendahl from Grave Digger.

All in all, this was surely intended to be a party metal album that should rock and invite you and your brothers of metal to bang your heads and drink some beers. From this point of view, the album achieves its goals and is easy to listen to. From an intellectual or more open minded point of view the album is quite traditional, repeating and filled with the worst kind of stereotypes and not at all comparable to the usual material of the band.