Ralf Scheepers has always been a favourite singer of mine ever since Gamma Ray released Heading For Tomorrow.  When he decided to form Primal Fear after not getting the Judas Priest job, I was a little dissapointed, but Gamma Ray are still as good as they ever were, and Primal Fear are just as exceptional.
After a great first album, Primal Fear have gone from strength to strength, and their new album, Black Sun, is an exceptional piece of work.
I'll get straight to the point, this is their best album ever.  It's hard, melodic, and Ralf's voice is on top form, especially on Magic Eye.  The guitars are superb; brilliant riffs, great melodies, and soaring solos.  So Primal Fear aren't the most original of bands, but this is more than made up for with the standard of the music they create.  Songs like Black Sun, Armageddon, Revolution and Mind Machine are pure, hard, power metal that cannot fail to draw you into headbanging.  Silence is a wonderful song too, full of emotion, with great guitar harmonies and heartfelt lyrics, it's one of my favourite tracks on the album.  We Go Down nods to Judas Priest with an intro that harks to the beginning Night Crawler.  Magic Eye has some great singing from Ralf and a brilliant guitar harmony section towards the end, one of the finer moments of the album.  The closer, Controlled, rounds off the album perfectly with the same hard metal that runs throughout the album.
This is one of the greatest power metal albums of all time, and you would do yourself an injustice not to listen to it, even if you're not a fan of the genre.