Mob Rules – Radical Peace

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Over three years after their poorly-received Ethnolution Mob Rules have taken huge steps forward with Radical Peace, replacing power metal cliché with genuine grandeur. On the face of it Radical Peace looks a little light with only seven tracks, but what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in time and quality with breathtaking eighteen-minute epic The Oswald File, which is like a entire Mob Rules album in one song. Even 7:30 opener Children of The Flame and shorter efforts Warchild and Trial By Fire feel more grandiose than their normal output, all with heavy riffs, but with vocal lines carrying far more emotion and meaning (even if the lyrics themselves aren’t quite up to the atmosphere created around them). Single Astral Hand is suitably catchy for the radio in a similar way to recent Blind Guardian and Hammerfall singles, but even here the change of pace towards the end into a soft verse and a slow solo before a typical closing chorus crescendo sets it apart from ordinary power metal. Radical Peace is Mob Rules bigger and better. It’s more variation, more complexity and more feeling. Simply more in every department, and their best album to date.

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Power Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Mob Rules