REVIEWS

■ SEVEN HELLS
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Ogre's penchant for grandiose, epic metal tales is in full force on this disc. The new songs see the band broadening their sound? [b]ut the real mind-blower is the intensity of the tracks, both in the songwriting and the delivery.
"Dogmen (of Planet Earth)" opens with a fuzzed-out riff and slams into a mammoth Doom groove before [vocalist Ed] Cunningham comes in with a snarling tale of a spaceman who returns to earth after thousands of years away only to find that mankind have turned into a feral dog people who eat everything they can find and want to eat him too. "Soldier of Misfortune" opens with a killer Hendrix-style riff and tells the tale of a Vietnam soldier who is carrying on the family tradition of armed service in wartime?The fun continues with "Woman on Fire," a song about witch burnings.
However you describe it, surely the disc's highlight is the over-the-top epic "Flesh Feast"?The lyrics tell the tale of three sailors on a Spanish galley in the 1500s whose ship goes down and leaves them lost at sea on a small boat. All they have is their bonds of brotherhood and religion. When the least in rank dies, they eat him?Musically, the track heaves like an ancient sailing ship bouncing ominously on gigantic waves under a foreboding blood red sky. Cunningham's vocal performance is indeed brilliant and unforgettable.
Needless to say, this isn't the kind of thing you're going to see on TRL. "Soldier of Misfortune" is eleven minutes long. "Flesh Feast" clocks in at fourteen minutes?[OGRE?s] songs mean something. They grab you and shake you and stick with you. They make you think and possibly even affect the way you end up thinking. They are timeless musical gems that are painstakingly and lovingly put together, not mindless pop throwaways?Rock is not dead. Long live Ogre.
Marilyn Zarkos - It Rock Rag

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