Swedish power metal band, Rocka Rollas, are a fairly well established act, and their third album, "The Road To Destruction", is one that should leave a mark, with good musicianship and a good sense of songwriting.

From the intro, "The Gathering", you know this is going to be some heavy, yet melodic stuff, with some great guitar melodies and an awesome build up. Then with the first proper track, "Curse Of Blood", we are served with some straight up Power Metal with lots of energy and fast technical riffage, meeting some great basslines. The chorus has some awesome vocal layering with some great guitar playing backing it.

The album has a lot of great moments, from the mid tempo marching sound of "Firefall", which has an awesome chanting chorus, to faster tracks like "A Wave Of Firestorms", which again has a great chorus, topped with some fantastic lead guitar as well. The album doesn't really let you get much of a breather, apart from small breaks and intros; it's all quite full on power metal stuff, which is by no means a bad thing, it's a full frontal assault throughout and that definitely suits this band just fine!

My highlight from the album is probably "Darkheart", which for me encapsulates perfectly the sound of this band, with plenty of fast catchy riffs and a really powerful chorus!

The album finishes on a MAGNUM cover, "Kingdom Of Madness". Gone are the flutes and acoustic guitars here; the band injects their own energy and style into this, making the riffs a bit heavier and adding some mad drums! It's also a lot shorter too.

The production is pretty spot on for power metal, with lots of layered guitars working well together and some great vocal sounds in the mix. The bass is actually audible, which is nice, and the drums have plenty of punch.

"The Road To Destruction" is a pretty good release from Rocka Rollas. The band has a great sense of melody that you can hear throughout each and every song, and the choruses are exactly what they need to be; impressive and powerful. They aren't breaking any boundaries, but they do what they do VERY well. This is an album worth checking out for sure.<