Very good debut album from this young bunch of Swedes.

'Life - A Way To Die' is the debut album from this young bunch of Swedes, which mixes healthy doses of Iron Maiden, Helloween and early Evergrey with the melodic rock sensibilities of, say, Whitesnake and Rainbow. It’s this joining of styles that are the strengths of this band, with the heaviness of the guitars of Tomi Peltonen and Stefan Tornblom mixing with the melodic roar of singer Jorgen Soderberg to propel the songs along at a fair old clip. All of this helps to make listening to the opening salvo of ‘Life Is On The Way’ and ‘I Don’t Really Know’ a real joy. It doesn’t end there though, when you can follow those two great songs with others as good as ‘Mystery’, ‘Falling Inside’ the riff heavy ‘Assasin’ or the powerful and very catchy melodic rock of ‘Rise Or Fall’ it lets you know that your hearing a band that have what should be a bright and interesting future.

As debut albums go this is very good one indeed with its tight powerful production, coupled with a bunch of musicians who really know how to play and a singer with a strong forceful voice who knows how to deliver a song. Plus the fact that above all else what this release has in spades is some classy rock songs, which when all is said and done is what we all want in the end. Definitely a band to keep your eye on because on the evidence of this CD, Griffen could be going places. (Thanks to Nicky & Sonia over at TSM for their help).

Ian Johnson