Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Decimation, either a slaughter or annihilation, a battering of the senses in which the only chance you have of salvation is keep on playing the album until you work out exactly why the new album by German Power Metal band Tragedian seems so formidable.

Not only does the music by the band spawn the feeling of greatness and yet another reason why European Heavy Metal has shone and sparked like a thousand welders continuously working away on a polished colossus, a tribute so large it makes working on the Angel of the North seem like a plaything you create in your lunch hour, it seems to be fitting across several boundaries in the Metal sphere. Not only can you hear touches of Black Sabbath but also the vocals, crafted so well by Val Shieldon, pay homage to the siren like delicate tones of Geoff Tate at his very best or fellow German Power Metal stalwarts Helloween’s Michael Kiske.

The perhaps unexpected five year hiatus has not only strengthened the axe wielding presence, the shamefully good guitar work by Gabriel Palermo looming over the album and steering the rhythm in a punishing scale that eclipses anything else that Tragedian have released so far.  Max Polon’s drum work keeping up with Mr. Palermo’s groundwork and battering the walls of any token resistance and magnifying Dany All’s keyboards and Steve Vawamas bass which steam in and wipe out nearly everything that the U.K. or North America has had to offer in 2013.

From Decimation to Redemption and beyond, the album screams out and makes ears palpitate and flutter. Tracks such as Escape, Destiny, the fantastic Inner Silence and the stunning Shadows Of My Past take that initial flutter and turn the excitement that kicks into place from the staggering start into something that packs a punch over and over again. It sits keenly in the ranks of European Metal in 2013, from France, Greece, Norway and all points in between and if involved in a boxing match, the referee would have thrown the towel in back in round three if not for the presence of Black Sabbath’s mighty album 13.

 Tragedian are back, better than ever and helping to drag the bloodied scraps of British Heavy Metal in its wake.

Ian D. Hall