Nostalgia don‘t you just love it?!

Anyone remember the mighty Fifth Angel? If the answer is “yes”, then you’ll also have heard of James Byrd who once played guitar for that fantastic band. James left Fifth Angel in 1987 forming his own band called Atlantis Rising, and within days of that departure he and his band were recording a brand new album, with some songs that had been written for the second Fifth Angel release. This new record became James Byrd’s Atlantis Rising. Fast forward to 2011 and original Atlantis vocalist Freddy Krumins found himself digging through a box full of tapes dating back to the 80’s and in this box he found the original masters to the Atlantis Rising album plus a whole host of unreleased tracks.

Sending them to James, they both then decided to clean up the songs and re-release them to the public and I’m so glad they did because if like me you loved that wonderful melodic metal sound Fifth Angel had, then this album featuring seven songs from the original album and seven never before released tracks, will be something you’ll want to hear again and again. The tracks from the debut are much heavier sounding and less polished than they were on the Shrapnel album, ‘Fallen Warrior’ the rifftastic ‘Fly To The Sun’ and ‘After The Fire’ are pure 80’s melodic metal songs with big choruses, which are great to hear once again. And when these original tracks are complimented by the seven previously unheard (yet still dating from ‘87) songs, including ‘Stranger In The Night’ with it’s superb guitar solo, ‘Chasing The Shadows’ with it’s Fifth Angel like riff or the wonderfully melodic ‘I Don’t Believe In Love’ then you know your onto a winner.

If you haven’t heard these songs before or even if you do own the first album, you still need a copy of ‘Beyond The Pillars’. You can then turn up the volume to maximum on your hi-fi, sit back, relax and remember the great metal that was being made 24 years ago. Nostalgia don‘t you just love it?!! (Now how about a new album…?)

Ian Johnson