THE FERRYMEN "A New Evil"

THE FERRYMEN

“A New Evil”

THE FERRYMEN is a project helmed by PRIMAL FEAR guitarist Magnus Karlsson, who is sure a busy guy. Here, he’s joined by highly hyped singer Ronnie Romero from the newest incarnation of RAINBOW as well as journeyman drummer Mike Terrana. Karlsson handles all stringed instruments and keyboards here and seems to intend THE FERRYMEN as a kind of bridge between PRIMAL FEAR’s power metal and the sort of AOR/hard rock you find on many Frontiers Records’ releases.

It’s Karlsson’s shredding axework that keeps my interest in “A New Evil”. His screaming, classically influenced guitar solos are all over the place here and even on the more sedate tunes, his axe is singing loud and clear. As for Romero, who also popped up on the latest SINNER record, his vocals are great for melodic hard rock but I think those comparing him to the likes of Dio and Tate are out of line. As for Terrana, that guy is always locked in no matter what project he drums for.
First track “Don’t Stand In My Way” has the metallic crunch of the best PRIMAL FEAR and is by far the most metallic song here, although the title track is very close. It could have been on any PF album. But from there, the keys become more prominent and the songwriting is more pompous and is a throwback to the gods of arena rock. By the time we get into the second half of the record and songs like “My Dearest Fear” and “You Against The World”, I was losing interest in everything bu Karlsson’s guitar work. The guitar crunch is still there but the songwriting is just sounds too sappy, too shiny for me.
So THE FERRYMEN have come up with a mixed bag here. If you really dig the ballads and pomp rock of PRIMAL FEAR and JORN, then you can add points to it, but it sounds too overproduced to me.

FRONTIERS RECORDS

THE FERRYMEN