• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

This is a reissue of an album originally released in 1993, and Life Among the Ruins is a big "what the fuck?" moment. My first – and still standing – reaction was "This is Whitesnake-meets-Virgin-Steele". Forget about the epic music the band is known for (note that I'm not particularly familiar with their catalogue before the late 90s). This is very commercial, metalized hard rock like Whitesnake did in the 80s. As much as I am a fan of 80s metal, stuff like Whitesnake is strictly for nostalgia and doesn't have much lasting power, which makes me wonder why bother releasing this. In 1993 that sound was already pretty much dead and should have remained so.

There's some good stuff trying to pierce out of the throwback on Life Among the Ruins, but for the most part this is watered-down metal with a good dose of "semi-ballads" that lack any kind of punch and could even find their way to some dance floor. This sound just hasn't aged all that well, though back then it was probably still fresh enough to garner some interest. Still, for the genre, this is decent. But that's not what one would expect from Virgin Steele nowadays. There's a public for this still – you know who you are. For the others, better take a raincheck and stick to the band's less commercial stuff.