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Avenger is a somewhat unequal album, at least to my ears. Kicking off with the excellent Crown of Thorns, I was left expecting the very best (that song is just great). I soon found out however that some of the songs are not up to par with this one. I found the vocals a little too "soft" on some of the songs, kind of breaking the kick-ass instrumental intro to a couple of songs. Don't get me wrong here, vocalist and lead guitarist George Call has an excellent voice, but I just felt that the levels chosen somewhat took away some of the power on two or three songs. Not enough to dismiss them however. Avenger is a very good offering by this US power metal band. The good material far outweighs the... I was gonna say "bad", but let's just call it "not as good". Overall a very good album.

The album is very well produced and bass freaks will be happy to know that not only are the bass lines pretty clear on the album, but a couple of songs also start with a leading bass intro, an interesting change from the usual guitar intros that the style has accustomed us to. The very well done booklet includes a lot of band photos, an unusual amount in fact!

As for their sound, well, hear it for yourself: Aska have a good number of songs in mp3 format on mp3.com. Check them out! Recommended to heavy and power metal fans.