Artist: Nostradameus 
   Title: Pathway
   Label: AFM Records

Gothenburg Metallers Nostradameus return with their fifth and strongest album so far 'Pathway'.

The band have seen many changes in line-up since their debut release 'Words of Nostradameus', but the core elements of Vapid members, vocalist Freddy Persson and guitarist Jake Freden remain, joined by Lennart Specht on guitar, Thomas Antonsson on bass and Esko Salow on drums, the band have really come up trumps with this new album.

The band retain their fast and furious pace, but this time the bring into the mix a lot more melodic metal elements to their sound, something that was apparent on their last album 'Hellbound'.

The album opens up with the intro ‘Welcome To Living’ before things really get underway with the monstrous metal fest that is ‘Wall of Anger’.  A track that is almost Powermetal in its style and sound, but still retaining that raw aggressive element that has always been Nostradameus.

The albums relentless pace continues with ‘Until The End’, another real metal monster of a track with Freden and Specht's duelling guitars against the thumping rhythm section of Antonsson and Salow hammering out the back beat, with Persson’s powerhouse vocals bringing it all together.

The metal fury continues with ‘Demon Voices’, another guitar ridden track, but it’s the vocals of Persson that really make this track, as he really dips and soars through his vast vocal range on this one.

The next track is the first of a two part metal explosion firstly ‘MDCC a.d pt.1’, which has a slower building intro with some soaring guitars and a heavy bass that lead the way for ‘MDCC a.d pt.2’, the heaviest track on the album so far.  Thundering onwards with a twin guitar assault and a pounding drum beat that will have any metal head in raptures, against the differing vocal styles from the gruff death metal tones to the more majestic high octane vocals, this track covers all bases.

My favourite track off the album has to be the almost Priest/Slayer mix of ‘P.I.R’, with once again the twin guitar attack reigning supreme.

The fast and furious pace continues with ‘No Trace of Madness’, before things slow down just a touch with the haunting tones of ‘Not Only Women Bleed’.  Another track where Persson really shines as a vocalist and shows that he can bring things down a touch as well as pumping out the metal.

It’s back to the melodic metal with another favourite of mine the anthemic ‘Death By My Side’.  The album comes to close with another piece of metal wizardry this time ‘The Untouchables’, a real raise your horns metal fest with the now compulsory twin guitar fusion of Freden and Specht spewing out the riffs, joined by those immaculate metal vocals of Persson bringing the whole track to life.

This is Nostradameus at their very best and is the sort of album that will really make the band a force to be reckoned with in 2007.

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