There is some good music coming from Poland. One of the bands that you should consider is SCREAM MAKER, a pure Heavy Metal band with a singer that sees himself as the new Bruce Dickinson. I have to admit that his voice has some similarities, so it's not completely unfounded. With "Bloodking" these guys from Warsaw have just released their fourth album and it is quite the stunner.

Although I have to admit that it took me several listening session of this lengthy album (67 minutes long!) to discover and accept that SCREAM MAKER has some real depth to them. I was too consumed with the vocalist Sebastian Stodolak, as I felt he was trying too hard to be Bruce. Once I let that go, I found out that there is a lot more to enjoy. And to precise, the half of the songs of the album turned my attention around, as they are easily the best ones on "Bloodking". But let's start at the beginning.

After an impressive intro  ("Invitation") the band lets loose. This is Heavy Melodic Power Metal with clean vocals that will have you thinking about a lot of their peers from the eighties and nineties. I'm not even going to attempt to mention any of them, as I feel you need to discover all of this by yourselves. The only thing that bugs me is that it seems as if the faster pace they are using gave them the allowance to slack in proper lyrical content. Instead of proper lines, the main focus was on trying to impressive vocally, pushing the musical contents to the back.

That changes when you reach the last seven songs, where the balance is restored to it's full glory. Here you het to hear how good a band SCREAM MAKER is , and how brilliant an album "Bloodking" could have been if they had done this all the time. That is when you start to listen to the album whilst pushing the vocals to the back of your mind. That is also the moment you realise that musically this band has all that you expect from a good Heavy Metal band.

Like I mentioned, if only they had recorded the whole album the way the five last songs have been done, this would have been a killer album. Now it's quite a good album, with an outstanding Power Ballad called "Die In Me". I also have to mention the last song "Too Late", it being a very impressive Ballad. Just to push home the point I was making. Ah well, there is always next time.