Imagine the music of Iron Maiden, Dream Theatre, Beyond Twilight, Helloween and Rush being brought together in one band. I often wondered how this would sound like. Now I know.
From the south of Europe my dreams and wishes are answered. The Italian band The Prowlers releases a great album with heavy metal influences by all the afore mentioned bands. Listen to their cd `Devil’s Bridge`: from the beginning to the end it`s pure energy with lots of progressive influences. The sound is excellent, no wonder because of the professional workmanship of Tommy Hansen (Halloween, Pretty Maids, TNT, Beyond Twilight, etc).

The Prowlers released their debut album Souls Thieves in 2003 and got raving reviews. With `Devil’s Bridge` I think that the band has even managed to make one more step forwards. One of the bands main efforts is the fact that all members are influenced by mainly the same bands, yet some by more heavy and the others by more progressive ones.

All musicians participate actively in the writing and arrangement of every song, that`s why the songs on `Devel’s Bridge` vary much and have a lot of melodical arrangements within ervery single track. The first song of the album (Alone in the Dark) has an acoustic intro that explodes with purely energy. Singer Fabio has a great voice, with the same power as for example Dickinson. The structure of the song is rather progressive with a lot of room for guitar and keyboard solo’s. Yes, this is metal as it should be! My favourite songs are definitely `A Last Gaze` (because of the bombastic opening section) the overall power and the excellent symphonic elements. The title song consists out of three parts, an epic masterpiece in which all the skills of the members of the band are included. Absoultely superb stuff! This album will be part of my CD-player for a long time, that’s for sure.