Artist: Lions Share 
   Title: Emotional Coma
   Label: AFM Records

After a six year wait the new album from Lions Share is finally here.  The band based around guitarist Lars Chriss are back and with new members Patrick Johansson taking over vocal duties and Sampo Axelsson on bass, these three are joined by drummer Richard Evensand and together they are the new face of Lions Share.

The new album sees the demise of the bands progressive keyboard sound and the birth of a new dynamic full on melodic metal approach based primarily around the guitars of Chriss and the huge powerful vocals of Johansson, with a few guest appearances thrown in for good measure, but more of these later.

The album opens up with ‘Cult of Denial’ and instantly the no nonsense approach to melodic metal is there for all to hear, with the distinctive vocals of Johansson bringing an old school vibe to the new Lions Share sound.  The same no nonsense approach continues on the next track ‘The Arsonist’, but with a more pounding rhythm provided by Evensand’s drum work and Chriss’s soaring solo’s providing the metaller in you with plenty to get your air-guitar stuck into.

The title track ‘Emotional Coma’ is the first of those tracks to feature a special guest musician and non other that Megadeth’s Glen Dover bringing his own distinctive vibe to the track, and with Johansson giving one of his finest vocal accounts on the album, this has to be one of my favourite tracks off the album.

The tempo is brought right back up with the rampaging metal fest that is ‘Clones of Fate’, this is definitely a Euro Metal track that has that Accept speed and ripping guitar sound mixed with Johansson’s power full vocals.  This is old school metal at its finest, raise your horns in praise Lions Share are back.

We take a trip to a darker place with ‘The Edge Of The Razor’, a more menacing sound is found on this one and with Bruce Kulick lending his guitar skills to this one, but it's soon back to the pounding metal with the monstrous ‘Toxication Rave’, a track the rhythm section definitely makes it mark with the thunderous bass of Axelsson and the relentless pulsating drums of Evensand dominating the track throughout, with Chriss coming in with some quite sublime fret work all engulfed in Johansson’s powerhouse vocals, great stuff. 

But the track of the album for me has to be the excellent metal tones of ‘Trafficking’, this is where Chriss really shows off his craft with some excellent tempo changes and switches from the simple to the awe-inspiring guitar work.  After the metal assault of the last track we once again tread the dark path with ‘Bloodstained Soil’.

The album soon picks up the metal mantle once more with the another of my personal favourites the almost Priest like guitar driven sounds of ‘Soultaker’.  This is another track where Chriss really shines as a metal guitar player and is carried on well into the next track the shred fest that is ‘Hatred’s My Fuel’.

The album closes with a cover of the NWOBHM act Angel Witch’s ‘Sorcerers’, a real tribute to one of founding acts to which today’s Heavy Metal bands should pay homage, as with out these and many others like them, Heavy Metal may never have reached the masses as it has.  All of which rounds off a great return for the band.  Those fans who were into the whole progressive feel of the old Lions Share sound may find this album a little too much of a change, but when the band play this years Sweden Rocks, they are sure to win a whole new army of fans over with this new sound.

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