Gallows End
“Divine Nemesis”
(Farvarhar Records)

With an album cover that would leave Grave Digger smiling (actually it’s by JP Fournier of Edguy, Avantasia and Immortal fame!), this is Sweden’s Tenacious D brought to life from a one man project courtesy of the multi talented frontman vocalist Thord Klarstrom who released the “Kingdom Of The Damned” EP in 2007. Now grown into a full band courtesy of some disciples and especially co writer guitarist Peter Samuelsson, Gallows End, despite their dark name and aforementioned cover essentially play pure heavy metal mixing power with melody on songs like ‘Set The World On Fire’ or ‘Storm Of Fate’ and reminded me a lot of early pioneer acts like Savage or Gaskin. Not brutal by any means, but nevertheless still able to be fast n furious like on ‘Riders Of The North’ where Mikael Karlsson’s drumming shows he’s indeed gifted as a little-big-man! Although there’s still more work to do on the songwriting quality, I acknowledge the bravery and competence of this garage band and whatever their future, they’ve had their say on “Divine Nemesis”.