FATE

Fate were formed back in 1984, in Copenhagen, when Hank Sherman left Mercyful Fate. Fast forward 27 years and after numerous album releases, and just as many line-up changes, the band are back with ‘Ghosts From The Past’. The personnel responsible for this release are vocalist Dagfinn Joensen, Torben Enevoldsen on guitar, keyboardist Mikkel Henderson, and the rhythm section of bassist Peter Steinke, the only survivor from the original line-up, and drummer Jens Berglid. This release is full to the brim with high octane, melodic and, above all, catchy tracks with more hooks than a Peter Pan convention. The highlights are the opening track, ‘Children of the Night’ which has a keyboard intro that morphs into a heavy, guitar led opening and has all band members at their best, from strong vocals to a solid rhythm section and ‘Seeds of Terror’ which possesses superb guitar and sticks like a barnacle to the brain. As well as having a number of quality tracks, the lyrical content on some of the songs is a notch above what you would normally expect of an AOR release. Amongst the topics covered are starts using the war on terror to bring in extra laws to control their populations (‘Seeds of Terror’), the psychological fear of strangers (‘Fear of the Stranger’), the mass suicide in Guyana of the Rev James Jones’ followers (‘Murder’) and censorship (‘I Believe in Rock N’ Roll’). To summarise, this is a very competent release with some high quality and lyrically quite intelligent tracks. The band can be justifiably proud of their efforts.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

AOR Heaven

Album

GHOSTS FROM THE PAST

Review by Dave Uphill

RUNNING TIME:

58:58

RELEASE DATE:

28th Nov 2011

TRACK LISTING

1) Children of the Night
2) Miracle; 3) Seeds of Terror
4) Fear of the Stranger
5) At the End of the Day
6) All That I Want
7) Follow Your Heart
8) Daddy's Girl
9) Moving On
10) The Last Time
11) I Believe in Rock 'n' Roll
12) The Other Side

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Denmark

"This release is full to the brim with high octane, melodic and, above all, catchy tracks with more hooks than a Peter Pan convention."