In the year 2013 the Heavy/Power Metal band known as CHASTAIN revived seemingly out of nowhere with the album "Surrender To No One", featuring for the first time since their 1995 album "Sick Society" their original vocalist Leather Leone along with the bands namesake and world axis, the guitar magician David Chastain. With their successor album coming in 2015, CHASTAIN decided to rerelease two of their old "classics" through Divebomb Records; "The 7th of Never" and "The Voice Of The Cult", and with the former of the two leaving a lasting impact on a seemingly forgotten Power Metal legacy (you can, and probably should, read the review here), let's see if the second of the two, "The Voice Of The Cult" can live up to its heritage!

And early on the album shows great progress towards just this as one of the album's (and indeed one of CHASTAIN's all-time) highlight songs opens things up, the title track "The Voice of the Cult": A great melodic track with a memorable chorus and a steady pace that neither kicks off the album into hyperdrive nor drives under the speed limit. And the follow-up "Live Hard" not only attempts to match the opener's success, but even goes as far as to attempt to usurp its highlight throne through a meaner tone, higher pace, kick-ass chorus and simply more punch.

The next song, "Chains of Love", is centered around some really sexy guitar riffs playing against Leather Leone's sometimes soaring, sometimes surrendering voice, with less emphasis on chorus and more power channeled straight into each and every verse. So far, so bloody good - but sadly this is where CHASTAIN's high-rise starts to fade, I'm afraid.

"Share Yourself With Me" is a good, solid song featuring all the components that have made CHASTAIN great up until this point, but you can almost immediately sense there's something different with it, and it's a sensation that sadly keeps going until the end of the album. This sensation is "sameness", and it's the marking point for when many bands must face the eternal dilemma of either doing the risky thing of branching out and trying something new, or do the safe thing and don't change anything. On "The Voice Of The Cult", CHASTAIN's 4^th album, they opted for the second choice, and it shows. Even if you've never heard CHASTAIN before, you can tell it lacks the soul of something fresh, innovative and truly inspired - which makes all the more sense considering that it was their 4^th album in 4 years. In reality the same is true for the first 3 songs as well, however the sheer strength of the songwriting on those exempts them from the same scrutiny.

That being said, the rest of the album isn't bad - far from it. All the songs that follows brings something to the table and definitively merits a listen or two, be it the almost MALMSTEEN-esque guitar-led "Fortune Teller", "Soldiers of the Flame" for its stand-up-and-fight rhythm and chorus, or the final track "Take Me Home" which verges off into more Progressive territory and almost manages to bring in that needed breath of fresh air before the album ends. There's not a bad song on the album, but unlike "The 7th Of Never" you don't feel quite as alive and excited all the way through on "The Voice Of The Cult", and that's the difference that matters.

Although this historically wasn't the turning point for CHASTAIN success story, "The Voice Of The Cult" marked the last album in CHASTAIN's "youth" to retain their near-legendary sound and style. The follow-up (and so appropriately named) "For Those Who Dare" was instead a fresh new-ish direction that I believe CHASTAIN needed to evolve by going down a darker and Thrashier road, and not only was it a creative return to form but also a very successful reinvention of their sound. But with it came an effective close in the stellar book that was CHASTAIN, as in turn its follow-up, and final album with the iconic Leather Leone (until the revival in 2013, that is), "Sick Society" was a distinct downgrade across the board that effectively sealed CHASTAIN's descent from popularity and relevance.

However to this day, by most measure, "The Voice Of The Cult" remains a damn fine album featuring a full set of good songs, some stellar instrumental and vocal performances, and an immortal sound and style legacy inherited and passed on to inspire generations of Heavy, Power and Speed Metal bands. As the 4^th one in a row, the formula feels ever so slightly tired and worn, and it can't quite live up to the standard set by its reissue partner "The 7th Of Never" or both their forefather and CHASTAIN magnum opus "Ruler Of The Wasteland", but it still packs a punch and delivers an album worth listening to by any and all fans of true old-school Power Metal in the veins of WARLOCK, GRAVE DIGGER, DIO and, of course, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN.