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Rating: One looks at the cover of this CD and thinks: just another damn metal CD. The title is "Hellfire Club" with a cover featuring the stylized face of a screaming demon on a gate. Obviously, anyone unfamiliar with the band won't knock, won't enter, and probably, while walking away from the store, would shake their head in clear disapproval. Nothing could be more wrong. If they turned the booklet, in fact, they would see a stylized jester...
Edguy seem tough, but if you listen to them and read their lyrics, you realize they couldn't give a damn about Odin, honor, glorious death, the sanctity of metal, the beauty of battle, the Devil, or much less a club in his honor. What Tobias Sammet is interested in is something else.
Is my hair okay, am I cool enough for tonight???
He's a true philosopher, a modern-day Socrates, who before going to sleep questions himself about matters of great importance. And so it was that on the seat of a first-class plane heading to Brazil, our master Tobias began to think: if the plane should crash, could I at least get with the hottie hostess to die with a big smile on my face (Lavatory Love Machine). And what about the poetic "Rise Of the Morning Glory". A tribute to the morning flag-raising, highlighted by excessively pompous backing vocals. Chapeau!!! In Lucifer In Love, our hero indulges in letting us hear Satan having sex. Instead of praising the King of some Manowar-esque army, Edguy tell us of the deeds of the king of fools (King Of Fools). The paradox is that the guys from Fulda in this chapter pretend to bare their teeth with tight riffs while the "very evil" verses follow one another. A heavy use of keyboards alternates with guitars: strawberries and cream pasta. Conversely, in a song with the ominous title "Down to the Devil", we find ourselves in the presence of a thrilling and incredibly cheerful ride.
The CD is a little gem not only because it is played and produced excellently; not only. It's enjoyable how Edguy don't take themselves seriously and have fun alternating moments of pure power heavy metal (like Mysteria and Under The Moon) with successful melodic insertions that stick in your head. Young metalheads grow up renouncing the dark path the sacred ancestors showed them. What heresy!!! Musically speaking, there's everything in this album, and the compositional level remains high until the end as it happened in the previous Mandrake. Melodic hits alternate with Avantasia-like suites (like the wonderful Piper Never Dies) with vocal arrangements and tempo changes galore, the ballads (Forever), and the more intense and fun tracks. The common thread is the positive energy, the solo technique, Sammet's strong voice, and the dynamic rhythm section (We Don't Need A Hero). An enjoyable, successful, and energetic album like few others, played by likable professionals who, if you see them live, will show you the positive side of metal.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Mysteria (05:44)
"Ladies And Gentleman - Welcome To The Freakshow"
Oh Yeah...
The world around is killing me
No thunder wind and rain
Eels are crawling everywhere
Compounding with the game
Grind the army, the living dead, without destination
The faceless crowd is out to kill all kinds of variations
You're trying to trample down my dreams
A shot in the dark
Mysteria - the spirit arising
Eldrich cries from the hill
Mysteria - fires are blazing
Their wicked feast is shattering the still, oh
Seven days and nights a week
Spinning like a wheel
You try to buckle, band and break
And polish stainless steel
Raging fury in the sky burning with desire
Self-determination rising from the fire
You're trying to trample down my dreams
My disdained ideals
Beware of the difference
We're savage and mean - we're a...
Mysteria - the spirit arising
Eldrich cries from the hill
Mysteria - fires are blazing
Their wicked feast is shattering the still, oh
Evil is the dreamer to pit himself
Against the forces of the tide
You pay the see to portray
What you wanna hear what he has senn that night
Oh - unholy is the feast
Watch us dance around the the blazing hellfire
And Lucifer arises he appears at my desire
Mysteria - the spirit arising
Eldrich cries from the hill
Mysteria - fires are blazing
Their wicked feast is shattering the still, oh
03 We Don't Need a Hero (05:28)
When you wake up in the fire
And your harbor lies in ruins
You wonder why the giant has been shot
Fired off down from the sky
You plead for explantation
Is it accident or rule
And where is your childhood hero
To drive all the demons away
What if the light
Shines in darkness my friend
And darkness just can't comprehend
So blaze the trail on your own
Go it alone
We are falling - falling to rise
Pain is the guide out of the wastelands
We don't need a hero
We are falling - falling to rise
No charlatan to show you the light
We don't need a hero
Indignty is the leader
To escort us to fen
Where they say the light is endemic
If only I could comprehend
Now you're old enough to face it
Rabble's stones give pain
Hit you as they watch your tracks
Apart from the way that they understand
What if the light
Shines in darkness my friend
And darkness just can't comprehend
So blaze the trail on your own
Go it alone
We are falling - falling to rise
Pain is the guide out of the wastelands
We don't need a hero
We are falling - falling to rise
No charlatan to show you the light
We don't need a hero
Oh we don't need a hero
No we don't need a hero
05 King of Fools (04:18)
What do you think when you spit in my face?
How does it feel to accuse and to haze?
Now look at me, I'm not one of your kind
And I prefer to stay behind
And walk the wicked way
We don't wanna be like you
We don't get than king of fools
We don't mind your life is trite
You are the king of fools
We are never gonna be like you
We don't follow - King of fools
You're the blind to lead the blind
And I walk the wicked way
You feel at ease as you flock with the masses
What do you see with your heads in their asses
Keep on railing at what I believe
Call me insane and I am proud to be
And walk the wicked way
We don't wanna be like you
Don't you get than king of fools
We don't mind your life is trite
You are the king of fools
We're not gonna be like you
We don't follow - King of fools
You are the blind to lead the blind - oh
07 Under the Moon (05:06)
Now if you gaze up to the moon
See she's become as blood and soon
The time is right:
We gotta pave the way
You gather silk to weave the net
Entrap the strongest you can get
A soul that's ready to return again
See the purity shining from his eyes
A newborn angel
To help the chosen ones rise
Blood red prophet in the sky
We're standing under the moon
Come down with fire
See the creature come alive
Standing under the moon
Come down with fire
Down with fire
Down with fire
Good intentions raise a mind
A new messiah to judge the blind
Kill off the fools
Who bar my pure and holy plan
We lead creation by the nose
To bring divinity to those
Who know tonight a golden age begins
Divine is the spirit
Into a terrestrial shell
A saviour of human blood
Lead u to somewhere
To heaven or hell
Blood red prophet in the sky�
08 Lavatory Love Machine (04:22)
Oh, if only Brazil was not so far
Far away I Would swim or walk or ride
But never ever fly
But all the noise of the maniacs there
The sweat on my face it's worth to bear
But I don't wanna bounce and die
But then I see a lady in a tight blue dress
I close my eyes, I know what I would go for
Stewardess before the crash
Lavatory Love Machine
No fear can quell my steam
Lavatory Love Machine
No cabin fire burn my dream
I am at your disposal
I gotta get up to see what you ain't gotta hide
Wheeling junk along the aisle
Keep your seat belf fastened
You're whipping with an iron voice
You command
Uh mistress I am in your hands
And when she asks me what I'd like to eat
I realise the domina feels the same
And I reply: What about your pie?
Lavatory Love Machine
No fear can quell my steam
Lavatory Love Machine
No cabin fire burn my dream
Lavatory Love Machine
No broken wings to stop me steam
Lavatory Love Machine
Honey dou you like the way I cream?
Now if I gotta die
I'll have been stiff and smiling till the crash
Let them know I've been alive
Till I made my final splash
Lavatory Love Machine
No fear can quell my steam
Lavatory Love Machine
No cabin fire burn my dream
Don't hear the scary noises
From the turbine when you scream
11 Navigator (05:18)
The dessert in the blazing sun
I feel my throat is burning
The guard is incorruptable
You name it vanity or yearning - oh
Now - dusty into my face
We gotta build it higher and higher
The sun is whipping from above
Your child chains of desire
And craving towers
From the dessert towards the sky
The grind of the genius
Who's raising his own decline
And the navigator is heading for hell
Setting off on a journey
And he'll never return
And the navigator he rose and he fell
In quest for heaven
He'll never return
Hey the seeker reaching for the stars
Beyond the scape of profanity
Oh and when he tried to touch the light
Fire burned his sanity away
Oh I gotta see it all
Tempting deities I hear them
But then when you follow their call
Pride goes before the fall
And the navigator is heading for hell
Setting off on a journey
And he'll never return
And the navigator he rose and he fell
In quest for heaven
He'll never return
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