Sporting a brand-new vocalist in Nikola Mijic and heralding the return of second guitarist and keyboardist Bob Katsionis, prolific international Melodic Metallers SERIOUS BLACK are back this spring with their sixth full length release "Vengeance Is Mine". With members hailing from all over the world, SERIOUS BLACK were originally conceived as a supergroup featuring musicians from such varied and successful acts as HELLOWEEN, BLIND GUARDIAN, KAMELOT and a lot, lot more. Over the years they have gone through multiple line-up changes, switching drummers three times, before settling on the final roster we have on this album with guest contributions from Katsionis. The press release for this album makes it very clear (as they usually do) that band founder, leader and primary lyricist Mario Lochert is super-pleased with this latest effort, and with a handful of exceptions, he may feel justified in this belief.

Apparently unafraid to embrace a good Rock cliché, the album breaks ground with the spectacularly unoriginally titled track "Rock with Us Tonight". Happily, for the listener, the banality ends with title of this song, which is a full-throated Hard Rocker allowing Nikola Mijic to immediately stamp his considerable vocal authority on the work. You can tell from their videos that this man is brimming with confidence, and rightly so. His timbre of his voice is naturally quite high, but he is quite capable of digging down into the low-end when required.

I'll refrain from breaking down the tracks in too much detail here, the band knows their audience and musical diversity is not the primary goal, although there are a few surprises to be found. For the most part we have a collection of driving Melodic Hard Rock and Metal tracks, the lyrics are a mixture of reality-grounded personal pieces and the more fantastical content you might expect to find in the Power Metal genre. Slick ballad "Ray of Light" is a bit of a misstep, the orchestrations are sweeping, but the track plods and the stunningly irreconcilable Death Metal style screams are a mismatch for the ages. There's a true oddity to be found in "The Story," a cover of US folk singer Brandi Carlile's early noughties hit, the inclusion of which is a master stroke, giving Nikola Mijic a dreamy laid-back vista of guitars and violins to exercise his skills to.

"Senso Della Vita" is one of the LP's major highlights showing off a brilliant, synchronised guitar and keyboard riff, before settling into verses with sparkling arpeggios and driving power chords, and a breath-taking shred solo which sees guitarist Dominik Sebastian navigating his fretboard at lightning speed, there's even a little touch of sweep picking in there.

I won't pretend to know what the bizarrely understated introduction to "Queen of Lies" is all about, nor will I pretend not to have been jumping around the room when it explodes into a full-frontal rhythm section attack of furious, driving bass and Rami Ali's superb double bass pedal hammering.
The production is a decent quality affair, the bass and drums have plenty of space in the mix, the guitar tones have been captured well and the vocal harmonies are nicely constructed and recorded throughout. For dedicated aficionados of the Melodic Metal genre there is plenty to get your teeth into over these thirteen tracks, and when these guys hit the festival stages this summer, the results should be spectacular.
"Vengeance Is Mine" is available as of February 25^th on AFM records.