Athlantis is a power metal band from Italy. M.W.N.D is their sophomore album released after 9 years from their self-titled debut album. It started with the promise of some good power metal contrasting with the black and death metal predominant zeitgeist we currently live under, but unfortunately I was disappointed, it was much like a rollercoaster ride that kept going down, down, deep underground.

M.W.N.D starts with the song "Madness is Rising" which, although has some good instrumental parts, much like the rest of the other songs of the album, (with special mention being made to Pier Gonella for the excellent guitar work both rhythmic and lead) it never goes anywhere especially due to its poor lyrics, that are the biggest problem of this album. The first three songs are alright, if you can get past the lyrics, but from that point onwards the songs get worse like the hard-rock-van-halen-glam songs "Strong as your Love" and "Dry Gin" and with the ballad "Faraway" that reminded me a lot of Disney songs sung at the Beauty and the Beast.

I found this album to be disappointing and un-headbanging with the main problem being the poor lyrics and the go-nowhere songs, but not all is bad, it has a decent instrumental work and it has a good production and for that it didn't receive a worse rating.