Review by Michael on May 5, 2022.

Whoa, Swedish Demonical have great plans with their new output Mass Destroyer if you take the opener 'We Conquer The Throne' literally. This track doesn't take any prisoners and is straight in your face Swedish old school HM-2 death metal with some Maidenesque riffing that does not show any compromises. This makes the listener pretty curious what will happen in the following 7 tracks which altogether have a total running time of about 34 minutes. Considering the predecessor World Domination where not everything was top notch ('Slipping Apart' was a pretty huge disappointment) some people may fear that on their 7th full-length another failure might have crept in. But just to put you at ease - there isn't such a track to find here.

The Swedes have composed eight really catchy and powerful tracks with a lot of melodic stuff inside but they never leave the death hand path. Of course they don't reinvent the death metal wheel but to be honest, why should they? Mass Destroyer has all the trademarks that Swedish death metal album needs and combines all the stuff that more popular bands like Dismember, Entombed (and in some cases also more classic influences like Black Sabbath or the already mentioned Iron Maiden) already performed. But don't take this as a point of criticism because it isn't. Demonical are a part of the Swedish scene much too long for us to be able to accuse them of copying any of the bands and they do have their own style and exercise it here with absolute perfection.

Tracks like 'Fallen Mountain' with its ultra-melodic chorus and the mid-tempo arrangements around it or the other quite atmospheric song 'Lifeslave' with its threatening riffing that appears like walls coming closer around you makes the shivers go down the spine. On the other hand there are some faster and more punkish songs like 'Wrathspawn' (the lyrics kinda like rhyme or die, fantastic!) or the fantastic closer 'By Hatred Bound' with galloping drums and a wonderful pace. One of the best tracks to go running I've heard in awhile! If (old) Manowar would have written death metal they would have sounded like this!

The production is as powerful and pressing as we are used to from Demonical and so there are no really big points of criticism about Mass Destroyer. Maybe the running time appears to be a little bit short but on the other hand, if they would have put a weaker track on it to get 40 minute running time, it would have spoiled the album.

Well, done – death metal throne (at least in early 2022) conquered!

Rating: 9.5 out of 10 Thrones

Review by Michael on May 5, 2022.

Whoa, Swedish Demonical have great plans with their new output Mass Destroyer if you take the opener 'We Conquer The Throne' literally. This track doesn't take any prisoners and is straight in your face Swedish old school HM-2 death metal with some Maidenesque riffing that does not show any compromises. This makes the listener pretty curious what will happen in the following 7 tracks which altogether have a total running time of about 34 minutes. Considering the predecessor World Domination where not everything was top notch ('Slipping Apart' was a pretty huge disappointment) some people may fear that on their 7th full-length another failure might have crept in. But just to put you at ease - there isn't such a track to find here.

The Swedes have composed eight really catchy and powerful tracks with a lot of melodic stuff inside but they never leave the death hand path. Of course they don't reinvent the death metal wheel but to be honest, why should they? Mass Destroyer has all the trademarks that Swedish death metal album needs and combines all the stuff that more popular bands like Dismember, Entombed (and in some cases also more classic influences like Black Sabbath or the already mentioned Iron Maiden) already performed. But don't take this as a point of criticism because it isn't. Demonical are a part of the Swedish scene much too long for us to be able to accuse them of copying any of the bands and they do have their own style and exercise it here with absolute perfection.

Tracks like 'Fallen Mountain' with its ultra-melodic chorus and the mid-tempo arrangements around it or the other quite atmospheric song 'Lifeslave' with its threatening riffing that appears like walls coming closer around you makes the shivers go down the spine. On the other hand there are some faster and more punkish songs like 'Wrathspawn' (the lyrics kinda like rhyme or die, fantastic!) or the fantastic closer 'By Hatred Bound' with galloping drums and a wonderful pace. One of the best tracks to go running I've heard in awhile! If (old) Manowar would have written death metal they would have sounded like this!

The production is as powerful and pressing as we are used to from Demonical and so there are no really big points of criticism about Mass Destroyer. Maybe the running time appears to be a little bit short but on the other hand, if they would have put a weaker track on it to get 40 minute running time, it would have spoiled the album.

Well, done – death metal throne (at least in early 2022) conquered!

Rating: 9.5 out of 10 Thrones

Review by Krys on June 23, 2001.

Our Finns had enough... after eight full-length albums Stratovarius decided to take a 2-year brake to pursue solo careers and to simply recharge their batteries. "Intermission" as the title states, is a gift to the fans before this long break and it features 4 new songs, 3 covers and 8 bonus tracks previously released on various albums or on 7" singles.

But... is this compilation worth your hard-earned change? Yes and no.

On one side, the whole idea of making this album with new and rare tracks only is well worth it. Instead of giving us one of those “the best of” albums with half of the tracks you’ve never heard of or skipped during the first listening, Stratovarius decided to show us what was supposed to be limited to the few parts of the world. If that’s not enough, money-wise, it can’t get any better than this. Instead of paying top $$$ for export titles with just one extra track you can get everything on one CD at regular price. And unless you are a diehard fan that has to have all editions of every album it’s as good as it gets.

On the other side, we all know that most of the time bonus tracks are just marketing tools and are not treated as ‘normal’ songs even by the bands themselves. Knowing that, I didn’t expect top quality throughout the whole album and, as expected, that’s exactly what didn’t get. Most of these eight bonus tracks are mid or slow tempo compositions with nothing more than average arrangements and mediocre melodic lines. Four new songs are 'Will My Soul Ever Rest In Peace', 'Falling Into Fantasy', 'The Curtains Are Falling' and 'Requiem'. The first three songs from this set are typical, Stratovarius sounding tracks which most probably were dumped during the "Infinity" session, and 'Requiem' is nothing more than just a keyboard outro and could be easily skipped. Let’s only hope that those tracks are not an indication of the band’s new material for 2003-release because they don’t bring anything new or innovative to their sound. As for the covers, Judas Priest’s 'Bloodstone' and two Rainbow tracks 'Kill the King' and 'I Surrender' are the top picks on this album and show Stratovarius’ real capabilities and talent.

Bottom Line: Nice collectors item but far away from their best stuff.

Rating: 6 out of 10