The Dawn of Enlightenment

This showed up on my Genius suggestions. I gave one song a try and the next day got the rest of the album. I'm really glad I did. I like to listen to Power Metal on my runs to keep me pumped up. Like Freedom Call, Avantasia and others in that vein, Armory cuts the mustard just fine. Soaring and epic vocals, great themes and thundering drums keep me moving!! Support our homegrown Power Metal bands here in the USA, give Armory a listen.

This is a solid, meat and potatoes power metal record. The singer sounds like Geoff Tate meets Bruce Dickinson. The songs deal with many triumphant subjects and spiritual matters...believing in yourself, transcendance to different planes in the universe and such. Nothing you haven't heard before, but Armory does it with such passion, conviction and without making any foolish moves throughout the course of the 10 songs. The drumming is supurb, the riffs and solos are classy, and the low end holds up well. The vocalist is without a doubt one of the better Tate/Dickinson imitators you'll hear, and I mean that in the most complementary way possible...he's got his own voice, really. A side note, the band has used ample inspiration from the world of the Nintendo Entertainment System music in forming their traditional power metal sound...if you were a NES gamer, you'll definitely hear the influence! "The Eyes of Time" floors me every time I listen to the bridge part, which sounds like it could have been lifted from one of the Zelda games. Second side note, The iTunes version of this record is missing two bonus tracks. I bought my copy direct on Armory's web site about a year or so ago (packaged together with a t-shirt...great deal!), and the disc came with two bonus tracks, a faithful cover of Iron Maiden's "Flight of Icarus," and "Dr. Wily," a short cover of the theme song of Dr. Wily from the Mega Man 2 video game! It's awesome. Worth the extra money in my opinion, but if you're just game for the 10 main songs, it's worth the price of admission here as well.

I looked this band up out of curiosity to find that they have some very awesome guitar lineups, although through these previews I have not been able to here the vocal lines (if there be any), this band seems to be very interesting.