Hey all!   I got to listen to the rest of the songs for "Sands Of Time" at Hanny's yesterday, and (though he kept assuring me it was just a "rough mix") I can tell you the (finished) album will be a killer! {Haven't heard them yet? Go to www.blackmajesty.com and download "Guardian" from the MP3 section!}   Though the track order hasn't been worked out, here's a quick review of what I heard as I heard them:   The title track starts off with a nice little keyboard intro and sets off into a great, fast-paced Melodic Metal song, with some nice lead work.   "Legacy" is another medium-fast song with some bitchin' double kick, and great backing vocals (esp. at the chorus) courtesy of Stevie, Jason (singer of Square 1), and Gio himself.   "No Sanctuary" is a nice medium paced song, with a noticeable change in Gio's vocal style. Here he starts off lower/deeper than we are usually used to hearing him, but of course still gets up to the highs.   "Colliding Worlds" is the fast, powerful, Maidenesque track which features Silvio from Vanishing Point sharing vocal duties. Destined to be another crowd favourite.   "Journey's End" was missing the 1 minute intro (which will be a separate track that leads into the song), but I can tell you this track is another classic! It's, once again, medium-fast paced, oozing "melodic"... then goes into a lead bit (courtesy of Stevie) that I scribbled on my notes as "Arabesque"... when I later mentioned that to Hanny, he laughed and said they refer to "that bit as 'the Egyptian Thing'". Anyway, it gets back into some nice melodic stuff before letting rip with more lead work.   "Lady Of The Lake" (yes, based on Arthurian legend) is the ballad of the album, but don't be expecting some pussy piece of crap ballad, coz this ain't it! It has piano and some nice heavy guitar, and Silvio on backing vocals just adds to it.   All up: this album is gonna be great! Great riffs and musicianship... great keyboards and backing vocals... and, of course, Endel Rivers produced it!   As I told Hanny, you sort of expect a couple of shit songs per album, even of your favourite artists... but I think these guys must think that is fucked-up philosophy, coz every song is great, and I can see the reviews will be like for the 3 songs of the promo (some mags saying "Fall of the Reich" was the best, others saying "Guardian"... then others saying they were but whetting your appetite for "Beyond Reality", etc).   Cheers all OzzyFrank

I sent this short review to some newsgroups on Wed 15 January 2003 so just pasted it here to save time (hehe)!

OzzyFrank's HEAVY METAL UNIVERSE