Sweden has proven, time and again, to be a melting pot of bands, who are able to borrow from everyone, but copy and sound identical to no one. When a veritable supergroup of veteran session musicians, including the famed Tommy Benander, come together to create hard rock and roll with roots in the great KISS and EUROPE, with a modern Swedish sheen, something lovely can be expected, and with IMPERA, the band's music lives up to its members' accolades.

A through and through hard rock album, the songs are not without catchy hooks and powerful vocals, driven by heavy riffage and blistering solos. Utterly predictable, but composed in a way, so this is not such a bad thing; if one listens to a KISS album to expect heavy rock, that is what they are going to get, and such as it is with IMPERA. The album begins with its heaviest track, "Beast Within", and is a great start to such a rock and roll romp. The song is dominated by a classic 80's hard rock motif,  gruff, powerful, yet sing-a-long vocal runs, and a blistering solo by Tommy that showcases his esteem as a veteran session musician, yet doesn't overdo it. "Smalltown Blues" is, not all that surprisingly, another heavy track deeply rooted in blues rock, but molded by heavily over-driven bass and guitar and some memorably KISS-like vocals by the talented Matti; perhaps my favorite piece so far.

"Goodbye" is a unique track for this record; while it retains the classic mixture of hard rock and AOR that this band is becoming known for, it is dominated by switcheroo between melodious licks, and squealing, Zakk Wylde-like harmonics. I found in "You and I", the standout EUROPE homage I was looking for. Upon listening to its intro, I thought I found myself listening to EUROPE - strongly reminiscent of their eponymous "The Final Countdown". "This is War" is an intelligently composed song that melds a fast and technical guitar riff, with heavy and slow-tempo drumming, that creates an effective contrast that perfectly suits Matti's stellar vocal performance on this piece.

Much like another band I had recently discovered, THUNDER TRIBE, IMPERA are bringing back, with force and talented musicianship, a genre that has been drowned out by modern musical masses for too long. No doubt, the stellar cast of this band is of help, both to the expert musicianship fueling this record and to their hopefully growing publicity.