Most times, listening to power metal is a guilty pleasure at best, but there are a few bands who kick it up a few notches and whose music you can blast anywhere without the need for being circumspect. The Greek outfit Firewind happens to be one of those few, owing the bulk of its ass-kicking rep to main man Gus G's guitar wizardry. As with most bands where the guitarist is fronting, vocalists tend to have a limited shelf life before they get axed (hur hur) and Gus went through three over the course of four albums, finally recruiting Apollo Papathanasio for the fourth effort, Allegiance. Sound thinking: if all else fails, hire a dude who's named after a greek god. Just his luck that the son of Zeus sang like a steel-lunged beast, and is probably the best singer the band has had so far.

Thus armed, Allegiance was a snarling bitch of an album, packed with hard-hitting anthemic rockers, and knowing full well how to vary their tempos and pace their punches. Sure, they had a couple of filler tracks, but those were easily overlooked in light of how much fun the damn thing was – overall, it probably tied with the Blind Guardian record for best power metal album of 2006.

Two years down, the band's released its second outing with Apollo, and while the general formula stays intact, there seems to be a bit of magic missing. None of the songs are outright bad, and to be fair, there's some totally solid tracks – Into the Fire opens the albums with ominous acoustic twanging that bring to mind the beginning of The Thing That Should Not Be before slamming the distortion down and getting all badass, Head up High is a great let's-all-be-happy metal party song and My Loneliness is mid-tempo pop catchiness at its best. Apollo's voice does its job, soaring over and cutting through the noise, while managing to still sound like he's got a pair. Gus doesn't drop the ball either, churning out some sick fretwork, his chops as ballsy and feel-injected as ever. The rest of the band does a pretty competent job as well, setting an example for all 'rest of the band's the world over.

However, there's nothing here which can match, for example, the headrush of Ready to Strike or the grandiosity of Deliverance. In general, there's something about the album that feels noticeably inferior to the one preceding it, and that's not how things are supposed to work out! You're supposed to get more comfortable and confident with each album with an existing setup, and move from strength to strength. Disappointment occurs.

End of the day, they're still one of the best bands out there in the genre, and The Premonition is a solid album, well worthy of your attention. They just ought to be doing better by now. Damn. Oh, special mention to the cover of Maniac from the Flashdance soundtrack. The 'wtf?!' factor is a bit cushioned by the fact that Carnival in Coal already covered it (using blast beats and growling, no less), but it's still great for a laugh now and then. However, laughter turns to suspicion once you realise it sounds a bit like Breaking the Silence from Allegiance. Food for thought.

Label: Century Media