THE CITADEL are a totally unknown band to me and since GMR Music sent us a promo CD of the band's Brothers Of Grief album I decided to review it to find out what this band is. Unfortunately, I realized that my choice wasn't so good since the Swedish metallers aren't such a good band after all.

The album starts with Brothers Of Grief, a track where Jonas Radehorn's vocals are - to say the least - funny. I thought that the whole album would be like this but thank God, the vocalist is not so bad after all, he just needs lot of work to improve, since his vocal abilities are more than obvious. It is just that I think that his voice does not fit the band's music.

Anyway, the band presents its debut album, which is issued through GMR Music Group, and what we get is melodic and catchy Heavy Metal with some slight Power and Prog touches that will sometimes remind you of bands like EVERGREY (I am not comparing those two bands of course!) and HAMMERFALL's melodic stuff. The production is more than just decent and this is something that adds some heaviness to the overall result.

To tell you the truth, Brothers Of Grief did make me get bored some times and I don't know if it will visit my CD player again, at least for the time being. It is really hard to decide whether I should suggest this album to many heavy metallers out there, since I wouldn't buy it for sure. It is not bad and there are definitely many people that would like it. I just think that this is not as strong as a debut album should be and it is such a pity since it is more than obvious that this band is really talented. I will be definitely waiting for their next album.