Hollow Haze
Poison in Black

Hollow Haze is an italian band, who are said to be playing power metal. I think from that you might be able to imagine about how they are supposed to sound, after all italian band usually has a distinct style to their music. Poison in Black is the poisonous fourth album by these guys and it follows the trend they have kept, they release a new album every other year, 2006, -08, -10, and now -12, like clockwork you could say. The cover artwork for this fourth offering is not particularly striking, not something that would compel you to look closer as it looks fairly dull to be honest. One more thing I found funny is the fact that they do a cover of the title track for the only Black Sabbath album I own, Headless Cross which is the track that ends this album as a grande finale.

We are dealing with Heavy- or power metal depending on how you want to define it that is quite heavy, one could describe it as powerful and that wouldn’t be a wrongful description. Despite being heavy they are very geared towards rather melodic stuff and they employ very catchy melodies and choruses. The vocalist they have is one with a good ranging voice who has a fair deal of metal prowess in it. The production is highly competent and the band employes a good sound that shows both skill and power, the album is also decently varied over the twelve tracks that makes it up. The playing time that reaches nearly an hour might be a deterrent for some, but ending with what is probably the best song by Black Sabbath might ease those fears slightly.

I would describe this album as rather good, the songs have power and style. The symphonic touches adds a bit of depth to the heavy music and a great vocalist just enhances the picture of a really powerful and good metal album. There are some slight negatives though, one of those is the lack of a distinct hit song. Sure Headless Cross is one and it is one that makes you want to play the album but behind that one there isn’t really another song that begs you to play, that you enjoy to repeat and so on. This might be due to the other slight negative I have found, the playing time. Nearly an hour is too much for an album of this character, there has to be more to focus on and more variation for something to stand for an hour’s play. And this long playing time might be the reason for all songs feeling about the same, all very good with none really standing out in any direction.

All in all though I have to be positive towards this album because it is very good, the songs are all strong and the vocalist is especially good in this band. And even if they fall a little short on really catching my attention they have still done a really good job with this album which is really powerful melodic heavy metal with a great deal of catchiness. And they shall have a lot of praise for doing such an excellent cover of Headless Cross which might be the best song ever by Black Sabbath, they do it more than justice. So in the end I could actually recommend this album only for that song, but if you like heavy/power metal you really should look closer at this album it has some real merit.