German power metal quintet, Lanfear, has finished their fourth album "aNother gOlden rAge". Since their last album, The Art Effect, I wasn't sure in what direction the band would head. That last album had its moments (few good songs), but otherwise the songs weren't that convincing... However, with aNother gOlden rAge Lanfear achieves the highest milestone of their career so far. All the songs are fortuitous and there's not much to complain.

Lanfear used to be a progressive metal band, but nowadays they're more of a power metal band (an innovative one though... calling their music simply power metal would be an understatement). Lanfear's music has a foundation on catchy hooks, strong rhythms and occasionally surprising choices regarding song structure and choice of instruments (the saxophone solo on the ballad 'Eternally' is just beautiful and crowns the song). Also the instrumental composition 'Eclipse', which resides on orchestral variations, brings refreshing variation to the album. 'Shades of Black', on the other hand, shows how diverse Lanfear can be. It seamlessly incorporates death metal to power metal song.

Production on this album has been done well... The sounds are rather good (better than on previous Lanfear albums) and the mastering has been done well. Actually, the sounds are amazingly clean without losing ambiance.

All in all, Lanfear's aNother gOlden rAge turns out to be their strongest album so far. It's a very diverse album, but manages to stay as a whole. To quote the press release/sheet, "no Power Metal fan should miss this album". It'll be hard for Lanfear to keep up the progress they have kept thus far.

Release date: 24.01.2004

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- MAGE (17.01.2005)

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LINE-UP:
Althammer, Tobias: Vocals Ullrich, Markus: Guitar Schindelar, Kai: Bass Seibel, Richie: Keyboards Schrank, Jürgen: Drums
Producer:	Vacik, Jan & Lanfear
Mixing by:	Vacik, Jan
Mastering by:	Horn, Andy

	TRACKLIST:
	01. aNother gOlden rAge 02. The Unreastrained 03. Dispraise 04. Transmigration 05. Eclipse 06. Shades of Black 07. The Voice Within 08. In Silence 09. Eternally 10. What... for 11. Outliving the Ages