Norway's Tomorrow's Outlook present here some modern heavy metal with some power metal leanings and, despite the modern sound, there's no shortage of mid-80s influences. The first thing that hits is that the singer sounds a lot like Bruce Dickinson and, if comparisons are to be made, I'd say Black Waves is not too far removed from some of Bruce's more melodic solo material. After just one listen, most of the vocal melodies were stuck in my head and it didn't take long for the music to follow the same path. It's pretty rare that I listen to an album and can hear the beginning of the next song in my head before the current one is over. Now, I must say this is pretty formulaic in terms of heavy metal. There are no surprises, nothing that makes you go nuts, but I've been listening to it for several weeks and it got a lot more playing time than many other albums on my playlist, so there's definitely some replay value. There are quite a bit of more melodic passages, and I think the album could have benefitted from rocking harder instead, but that's pretty subjective. The last song, "The Calm," sounds a bit too "sad" and every time left me feeling down every single time so, even though it's not a bad song – it might be the most "Bruce-esque" of the bunch – but for me it doesn't work as a closer. Your mileage may vary. Overall, no surprises here, but well-crafted heavy metal.