Pass It Around is Donavon Frankenreiter's 5th solo album. As his usual style, its those soft surfer-feel jams that are great for a mellow mood.
Let me take you down a quick summary of each of the tracks:
Life Love & Laughter is probably the most upbeat song on this CD. Despite employing the cliche 3 L's, it actually manages to be a great song. With its quicker pace, its one that stands out as a favourite of the album.
Too Much Water is a very soft sounding song. It's got a short riff that feels a bit too short as it gets repeated over and over as the parts in-between the chorus run. Not a bad song, but one I might find myself skipping over if control isn't too far away.
Lineup: ZP Theart - Lead vocals Herman Li - Lead/rhythm guitar, backing vocals Sam Totman - Lead/rhythm guitar, backing vocals Adrian Lambert - bass guitar, backing vocals Dave Mackintosh - Drums Vadim Pruzhanov - Keyboards
Sonic Firestorm is Dragonforce's second album, after their debut album Valley of the Damned (2003). In this album, the musical style is similar, but with subtle differences, to their sound on their previous releases. Keyboards now play a larger role in the music, evident particularly on Fields of Dispair and Soldiers of the Wasteland. Every song on the album is loaded with creative and epic vocal melodies that often form the focus point of the songs. No song on this album goes without multiple guitar solos, and many tracks also feature keyboard solos in addition to the shredwork. On this album, bassist Adrian Lambert and drummer Dave Mackintosh replace Didier Almouzni and Diccon Harper from the Valley of the Damned lineup. This album retains their speed/power metal mixture from their previous releases, and adds video game influences to the guitar and keyboard work. Many Dragonforce fans claim Sonic Firestorm to be their best release, but this is easily debatable and their best release in the ears of a listener depends mainly on musical preference.
The average song length has increased from Valley of the Damned, the shortest tracks weighing in the five minute range, and Soldiers of the Wasteland dragging on for nearly ten minutes, the rest remaining 6-7 minutes long. Sonic Firestorm has eight tracks, along with a bonus track on the Japanese release. With this album, Dragonforce started a trend in having a "featured" track start off the album, as witnessed on Valley of the Damned and continued with Inhuman Rampage. The band almost always plays these featured tracks in their live set.
Sonic Firestorm is a very solid release, maintaining a level of quality throughout the entire album that is bound to amaze. I reccomend it to any fan of metal, especially those who enjoy speed, thrash, power metal, or any other Dragonforce releases.
      Tokyo Warhearts - Children of Bodom (1999)
   Lineup-    Alexi Laiho: Lead guitar, vocals    Alexander Kuoppola: Rhythm guitar    Henkka Blacksmith: Bass guitar    Janne Warman: Keyboards    Jaska Raatikainen: Drums
   Tokyo Warhearts is a live recording of Children of Bodom's Club Citta performance in Tokyo on July 10-11th, 1999, shortly after their sophomore album, Hatebreeder, was released. The intro starts off with an instrumental version of Crockett's Theme (originally performed by Jan Hammer),
Lineup: Alexi Laiho - Lead guitar, vocals Alexander Kuoppola - Rythm guitar Henkka T. Blacksmith - Bass guitar Janne Warman - Keyboards Jaska Raatikainen - Drums
    Hatebreeder is Children of Bodom's second album, the album that started developing the band's fanbase. Published in 1999 under Spinefarm and recorded in the ASTIA-Studio in Helsinki, Finland, Hatebreeder is one of my personal favorite albums. This album has a style of music which cannot be quite explained under any genre. The vocals are in the style of black metal, the keyboards encompass many different sounds, even a harpsichord style synth.
ZP Theart- Vocals Herman Li- Lead & rythm guitar, backing vocals Sam Totman- Lead & rythm guitar, backing vocals Vadim Pruzhanov- Keyboards, piano, backing vocals Dave Mackintosh- Drums, backing vocals Additional members on the Inhuman Rampage recording: Adrian Lambert- Bass Clive Nolan- Backing vocals Lindsay Dawson- Rough backing vocals
 Inhuman Rampage is Dragonforce's third and newest album, and possibly the best to date. This album is, as one would expect from this band, a very fast album as a whole. The recording starts strong and steadily breaks down until the last song is about half the speed as the first track. Dragonforce, in case you don't already know, is the leading force behind what is often referred to as extreme power metal. The main differences between your typical Helloween power metal and Dragonforce power metal are quite evident. Just about everything is much, much faster. Also, the guitars are usually on the extremes of distortion. They sound high pitched and high tempo. When they're not heavily distorted (as evident at the beginning of Through Fire and Flames), which isn't very often, they still tend to be fast and high pitched. Not too much variation. The vocals are melodic, usually on the high pitch side. Think of Stratovarius, but with a more predictable melody. The vocals are in almost the exact same style in every song. The main difference is the chorus melody. On the upside, however, the vocals are very distinct from other bands and will get stuck in your head quite easily. Also, for the most part, bass is background noise. All you can hear is a low vibration that changes pitch every half note. The drums are just as fast as the guitar, and double bass drumming is quite common. On the songwriting side of things, there is melody everywhere. If they had a melodic thought in their mind, they put it in a song. The structure usually seems to have a chorus that repeats 2-3 times and verses leading up to them. Before, in between, and after these parts the guitar keeps you company. After and before each vocal part, a repeating lick is usually played. In between that, guitar solos. Dragonforce songs are also long, the shortest song on the album is 5:19 long.
Inhuman Rampage is 