U.S. Power Metal is my favorite overall "style" of metal. It's one of metal as a genre's foundations at this point, powerful and massive and infinitely melodic but indulging in the heaviness of early thrash, NWOBHM while still being able to incorporate the more elaborate structures of progressive rock. Few bands have the vocal chops or the nuance to pull this style off well. But just when all hope was lost, Australia birthed a dark horse to little fanfare this year - A World Awakens, the sophomore release from Damnations Day.

Their first album a few years ago, Invisible The Dead, wasn't anything special so I get the lack of hype....but this album is such a massive step up. Yuge. Ginormous in every respect. The vocals from Mark Kennedy here rival Geoff Tate, Midnight and Rob Halford in their respective primes. He's an overwhelming force that could make even reading off the phone book sound like a titanic event, maybe one of a handful of frontmen in the metal world today who can sing at that level. That's not light praise coming from these fingers!

The songs are pretty good too, with a strong sense of variety from track to track and a balanced production style to match. Kinda earthy, with the guitars neither too high or too low in the mix. The orchestral indulgences on 'Into Black' are pretty nice, reminding me of 'Silent Lucidity' from Queensryche's Empire (probably intentional), though I think third track 'Colours Of Darkness' actually one-ups the prog-metal kings at their own game. It starts off mid-tempo but builds to a soaring climax in its final minute that'll drop your jaw. For fans of speed and melodic thrashiness, opening cut 'The Witness' and the speedy 'The Idol Counterfeit' are both pretty stellar. The latter is particularly interesting, if for nothing else that it's got a fun Iron Maiden meets mid 90's post-grunge chord progression.

This is one of those albums that probably wouldn't be able to get away with this particular style under normal circumstances. USPM and Alter Bridge-styled proggy grunge aren't normally the friendliest of bedfellows, but Damnations Day were determined to make it work and it pays off way more often than you'd ever expect it to. Hell, it's actually pretty fun. And fun is a hard thing to find sometimes.