In 1981 (a very long time ago) I had my first acquaintance with the Swiss hard rock band Krokus; I bought the album Hardware on vinyl. The debut CD of Krokus was recorded in 1976! Now 30 years later and after a lot of member changes Krokus is back with their new album Hellraiser and guess what! These guys didn’t forget how to make great rock music, Hellraiser rocks from the beginning till the end and the production is superb.

During the years their music hasn’t changed a lot, don’t expect very many surprises. Mr. Marc Storace takes care of the vocals as usual, the guitar solos of Meier and Favez are superb. The title song and Too Wired To Sleep sound like AC/DC in the first period of late Bon Scott, amazing.

The other songs can be divided in up-tempo songs (Spirit of the night), power ballads (Angel of my Dreams) and typical Krokus songs (Fight on). Favorite songs are the power ballad Angel of my dreams and the AC/DC orientated song To Wired to Sleep. The latter song is a strong rock song, with groovy riffs and a great guitar solo, I like that. The title Angel of my dreams sounds like a very sweet ballad but fortunately this is not true, the guitar plays an important role.

All in all the album Hellraiser can be recommended to melodic hard rock fans, Krokus fans can buy this record blindly.