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So far every Gatekeeper recording I have heard has had a new vocalist, giving each one a different feel. This second full-length album is no different, with Odinfist singer Tyler Anderson replacing Jean-Pierre Abboud, who sang on the debut East of Sun. This band has come a long way from their much more barebone sound on their early efforts, and this is a definite step up from their opening album, which I thought was pretty good, but didn't have any songs to really hang onto.

Gatekeeper are definitely in the movement of modern True Metal bands like Eternal Champion, Visigoth, and Blazon Rite, all of them blending the classic sounds of bands like Manilla Road, Warlord, Solstice and Manowar with more recent influences like Doomsword and Battleroar into a definite sound that they are still expanding and defining. New singer Anderson has a good ear for vocal melodies, and this does a lot to bring these songs up a notch. Gatekeeper's riffs and songs were always good, they just needed better vocal lines to really make them memorable, and this time they have that. Songs like "Death on Black Wings," "Exiled King", and especially "Twisted Towers" are prime cuts of epic steel, but really this is a tremendously consistent album, with no bad songs or dead spots. Gatekeeper have finally dug in and made the first-rate album I always hoped they had in them.