I've got to tell you, I absolutely hate it when a band does this smashing intro-verse section that is absolute metal and do the singalong major scale chorus with a key change. It's very dumb and to these ears, very typical Cop-Out Euro. Yaw'll should understand, Cop-Out America likewise is when you do thrash-groovy-at-the-gatesy intro-verse and do a gay singalong chorus. These are the modern metal equivalent of truck driver's gear change, one of the most ill-exploited banalities in songwriting.

With Carved in Stone, the german veterans-of-sorts return to a relatively more stripped-down approach with a new drummer. Prog-power-neoclassical metal drum whore Mike Terrana apparently decided he has some musical and personal differences with these guys. I guess he doesn't have any creative or personal differences with Axel Rudi(mentary) Pell, one of the world's shittiest guitar heroes ever. I digress, but taking the choruses into consideration principally, Carved in Stone is almost on the wrong side of the fence for me. I also don't care for the compressed drum sound and was disappointed with Victor Smolski's guitar solos too. Many solos have no character whatsoever. No buildups and no fucking drama. Even if he's starting off with a melody, he'd play it for a couple of bars and immediately switch to doing the whammy-abuse shred gimmick licks. Very generic superstratsy, if you know what I'm talking about. If I knew him, I'd hand him some Criss Oliva material.

Last I heard this band was when Soundchaser (2003) just came out and I remember liking that one more, but that CD had Remedy Lane (by Pain of Salvation, which sadly was their last out and out great effort) on it too so the Rage never got too much play. This is decent and it's bound to top metal-rules' 2008 lists and make the Wacken Metal Nerds cream their pants. I'd summate and give it 2 thadiyans and a half. Of course, YMMV and all that shit.

Year of Release: 2008
Label: Nuclear Blast