Artist: Shylock 
   Title: Devotion
   Label: MusicBuyMail Records

Hailing from Munich German hard rockers Shylock have repeatedly come up with the goods when it comes to their album releases, and now in 2007 the band carry on where the last album left off.

This new album ‘Devotion’ is Melodic/Hard Rock fans dream, great melodies, superb riffs and a powerful vocal force in Mathias Schenk.

Things get underway with ‘Eternal Life’, an all out rocker with the guitars of Johannes Lohr ripping things up from the off before Schenk unleashes those power ridden pipes.  However it's the guitars of Lohr that are the standout feature on this opener as he cruises thru this and most of the album with some stirring licks.

Things slow down just a tad with the next song ‘Things Like That’.  This is where Schenk can really show us that he can bring it down when needed as he comes across like a mix between Gotthard's Steve Lee and Bonfire's Claus Lessman.  Once again it's the soar away guitars of Lohr that really bring this song to life.

It’s back to the rockier stuff with the aptly titled ‘MUSIC’ before the mid tempo sways of ‘U Feel’ with Lohr shining once again as he and keyboards man Oliver Thiergartner trade punches on this one.

We get a little taste of something heavier from the band with the thumping ‘The Rain’ as drummer Achim Thiergartner makes his mark on the album with a resounding back beat and is backed again by the riffs of Lohr.

Another track in the Bonfire/Gotthard vane is ‘Ocean’, this leads nicely into the excellent ‘Castaway’ with Schenk doing what he does best as he nails every note without having too extend himself vocally.

Another song where the vocals really shine is on the power ballad ‘Again’, a song that will have all those diehard Melodic fans in raptures at its splendour, as will the superb hard edged ‘Hunting High And Low’ with its Eastern feel keyboards.

The hard rocking continues with another one of my personal favourite tracks ‘Fading Memory’, again the similarities between Gotthard and Bonfire are there for all to hear and this analogy will no doubt be well documented, but I think this can only be a good thing and one that will surely make the album more appealing to a wider spectrum of Melodic/Hard Rock fans and help extend the bands fan base no end.

‘New Attraction’ is another slow ballad where Schenk really goes all out to impress with some fine harmonies and this continues thru to the next song ‘Anybody Out There?’

With the album almost at a close the band bring out the big guns with ‘I Wanna Live’, a real gem of a track as Lohr mixes electric and acoustic guitar on this one. The album closes with a bonus track ‘Farewell (To The Champion)’, which is the bands tribute to Thomas Hässler, one of Germany’s footballing legends who was capped 101 times for his country and who won European and World titles with the national squad and one that rounds off a great slice of Melodic/Hard Rock.

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.