INTENSE caught my attention a few years ago with a track that I downloaded via their site I believe it was called The Winged.  It was raw aggressive, but yet epic Power Metal.  It is very hard to find certain records like this in the U.S., so I never got around to picking it up since I really prefer not to do mail-order.  Which makes hearing an entire INTENSE album a three year wait, which was way too long.

The band got their break in 2004 when Karl Groom (THRESHOLD) produced their first full-length album Second Sight.  In support of this album they got open England's Bloodstock Open Air and played on the same stage as Sonata Arctica, Primal Fear, and Evergrey. They also participated in Eurovision where they represented their homeland England and ended up finishing 7th, not to shabby.  For this record they again stepped into the studio with Karl Groom and they were set to play Ragnorok in Scotland, but it was canceled due to low-ticket sales.

Anger Of The Ancients starts the album off right with lots of double bass and Sean's unique sounding voice along with the crunch of the guitar, truly great work.  Nick's guitar solo at about 2:45 has very similar tone to a different guitar from the 80s or something that I just can't pinpoint, but is a very nice addition to the song.  On Our Last Hope the double bass takes a break from the first two tracks and the more epic or perhaps symphonic side of INTENSE comes through.  It sounds as if Rich from THRESHOLD has little bit more to do with this some of the other songs on the album due to the overall sound of it.  
I saw a trilogy at the end of the album which I got pretty excited for since they list ICED EARTH as one of their influences and I know IE has some fantastic trilogies.  However, I didn't find this one to be overly great or really too different from the rest of the album.  I am not saying I don't like the trilogy, but it wasn't up to what I was thinking.

INTENSE should be for listeners of ICED EARTH and the more aggressive end of Power Metal. Maybe some NEVERMORE or BIOMECHANICAL fans would enjoy them.  I guess for any matter any Metal fan that likes epic sounding aggressive, without being Death in way than I would greatly encourage you to check this album out as well as their previous.