Hailing from Grenoble, France, the hometown of pro wrestling legend Andre the Giant, Nightmare is a band that plays power metal with a touch of thrash. It’s hard to believe this band has been around in one form or another since 1979 and that “Burden of God” is their eighth studio album (they also have one ep and two live albums to their credit!). Of course this incarnation of the band is vastly different than the band that got it’s big break as a traditional metal band opening for Def Leppard in 1983. The current line up features former drummer Jo Amore on vocals, his younger brother David on drums, Franck Milleliri and Matt Asselbergs on guitars, and Yves Campion on bass.

       I have to confess that I’m not familiar with Nightmare’s back catalog, so I have nothing to compare the new album to. What I can tell you is that “Burden of God” is a fantastic contemporary power metal album with an old school vibe, aggressive, yet melodic vocals from Jo Amore, guitars with lots of crunch and speed metal drumming. After the intro track “Gateways to the Void”, the first song “Sunrise in Hell” goes for the jugular and doesn’t let go. While there are many impressive tracks here, including the mid-tempo symphonic meets doom crunch of “Children of the Nation”, “The Preacher” with it’s religious overtones and spoken word intro, the grinding fury of “The Doomsday Prediction”, and the melodic “Final Outcome”, the highlight of the album in my opinion is “The Dominion Gate Part III” featuring the amazing vocal talents of Magali Luyten (Epysode/Beautiful Sin) the next chapter of the saga started through the title track of 2005 release “The Dominion Gate” and continued with “The Dominion Gate, Pt. II” on the 2007 release “Genetic Disorder.” For a band that has over thirty years of metal history, Nightmare has created a power metal classic with balls and lots of energy. One of the years best power metal releases.

Rating: 8.0