Heavenly - Sign Of The Winner
Sanctuary
Fantastic Speed Metal
10 songs (54'09)
Release year: 2001
Heavenly, Sanctuary
Reviewed by Chris
Album of the month

That second album from the French band Heavenly really came as a surprise to me. Not only did I not think of them being able to get a second album near the quality of the first one, but never did I anticipated to receive such a slap in the face. Let's get one thing clear, Ben and the guys don't need Piet Sielck or Kai Hansen to release a great album, that I didn't know until the first listen of this masterpiece was over, and until I realize how incredible this band is.

One of the best album in the True Metal ranks this year, no doubts about that. Imagine Helloween, with a lot of Angra and Stratovarius elements merging into it... this powerful, almost magical mix give you Heavenly ! But imagine that not only you'd get the musical attributes of these great bands together but you would also found their singers ? Yes, as incredible as it may sound, Ben, the mastermind behind Heavenly can pretty much sing like anyone if he feels like it. We had already noticed on the first opus how incredible his Kiske imitation was. Well, he added singers to his resume and those are Andre Matos and Timo Kotipelto and god knows these singers are also difficult to imitate (and very different from each other, in both their voice sound and style). Where I'm totally amazed is that he not just barely remind you them, it's like he's assimilated them into his vocal range and can seamlessly change from Timo to André and then back to Michael.

But Heavenly is more than just having copycats of singer abilities, much more ! They deliver an epic, symphonic power packed atomic bomb music. Not far from Helloween (we're talking of the Keepers period), their Speed Metal is gracious, fast and extremely melodic. The merging of the bands that clearly inspired the members of Heavenly is simply unbelievable, as it seems the band has taken only the best parts from them, therefore creating a super album. I don't believe the overall to be very original and certainly not new, but the way the band fills the sound spectrum with killing guitar riffs, majestic keyboard, great melodies and epic choirs and choruses makes you want to pledge allegiance for them almost instantly. The album is filled only with killer songs, one after the other, from True Metal hymns of 7 minutes in length to type speed metal songs the album is a pure diamond and the only thing keeping this album to get the perfect quote is it's little lack of originality.

Impressive, I still can't believe my ears here, the French now have their True Metal gods : Heavenly. A bombastic release, not very original maybe but it will blow away both your speakers and your mind. I believe that Ben have been inspired by the bands he likes and that he plays the music he loves...with a deep love the metal sound. But I also believe he is quite new to metal, and that with experience and maybe by digging a bit more into the past to the roots of metal, he and Heavenly might very well bring to their sound even more amazing elements than it contains today. I predict their tour with Edguy will be enlightening (something tells me that Ben will soon also assimilate Toby's singing) and that their third album could very much be their decisive one, just like Edguy with Vain Glory Opera. A new star is born ! One of the best albums this year, and a buy-or-die album for all True Metal fans, period.

Killing Songs :
Absolutely all of it, every track, every note, every millisecond !
Chris quoted 96 / 100
Other albums by Heavenly that we have reviewed:
Heavenly - Carpe Diem reviewed by Chris and quoted 97 / 100
Heavenly - Virus reviewed by Chris and quoted 96 / 100
Heavenly - Dust To Dust reviewed by Chris and quoted 98 / 100
Heavenly - Coming From The Sky reviewed by Chris and quoted 91 / 100
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