With Virus the French band Heavenly releases their fourth record. The band was founded in 1994 and has toured as an opener for Symphony X, Stratovarius, Edguy. The band got quite some experience in their history touring with these great bands. The music of Heavenly is best described as melodic heavy metal with a lot of influences of the bands they have toured with (especially Stratovarius) poured on with a sauce of Rhapsody elements (classical instrumental parts and bombastic choruses).

From the first notes of the album it is clear the keyboards are very important for the sound of Heavenly. Therefore it is rather strange that there is no keyboard-player in the line-up of the band. Also very typical Heavenly are the rather long solos (guitar as well as keyboard) in the songs; I like these solos, they are fresh and not boring at all.

All songs – whether mid-tempo or up-tempo – are typical Stratovarius songs with a lot of Rhapsody influences (fast double bass drums and bombastic choruses). The intro of Wasted Time reminds me of Maiden, but the song becomes quickly like the other, Stratovarius minded songs.

The songs sound very familiar, I’ve heard these melodies many times before. It must be said that the performance is quite well, the production and sound are great, and fans of music like Stratovarius would surely like this very much. An absolute minus point is the cover ‘When The Rain Begins To Fall’…SKIP!!!!!