While I may have never heard of this, dare I say it, mob before; I must admit that I’m glad to have become acquainted with them now. The German sextet has been around for nearly 2 decades now and have a string of releases under their belts, this being their seventh album. Style wise they are blatantly a German metal band, with plenty of lead solos and catchy choruses to sing along to; however they are also rather heavy, even if they never lose their melodic edge while doing so.
Wasting no time, Nikolas Fritz breaks into a steady double kick attack giving the guitars room to flip between their rhythms and leads on “Close My Eyes”.
The melodic but melancholy guitar rhythm on “Lost” allows the emotion to be heard in Klaus Dirks vocals in much the same way Matthias Mineur and Sven Lüdke’s leads slice through the keyboards and drums.
Klaus’ high vocals on “Tele Box Fool” are at the opposite end of the scale to Markus Brinkmann’s bass and appear to climb higher the more anxious he appears to get.
The first single from this album shall be “Ice and Fire”, which has an accompanying video and is a rather mellow track with plenty of melodic guitars, Jan Christian Halfbrodt’s keyboards and a nice heavy chorus to sing along to. Probably a rather good choice as a starting point to entice hard rock fans into listening.
Reminding me a little of Therion with its orchestral feel “Soldiers Of Fortune” even has Klaus sounding a lot like Mats Levén with his powerful vocal delivery.
“The Sirens” isn’t a Savatage cover, but Mob Rules have toured with them and I guess the full sound and flowing lead might even be comparable in technical ability.
A mountain of a track, “Scream For The Sun (May 29th, 1953)” opens with a sound clip of Sir Edmund Hillary followed by guitars climbing in ballad-like intensity ’til they hit the crescendo and have the vocals hitting highs unreached before now.
Title track “Cannibal Nation” starts at a good solid pace and never flails, nor does its subject matter, that being Jean-Bedel Bokassa.
“Sunrise” on the other hand is beautifully soft and gentle; the acoustic guitars eventually become wailing leads over easy drumming and strong but melodic vocals.
(7/10 Marco Gaminara)
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