Start with a grumbly post-NWOBHM base, throw in Laibachian industrial excess, sprinkle in new wave keyboards and top it all off with a dual male-female lead vocal scheme. There's a lot of 80s here, but anyone who can reasonably sound like Iron Maiden playing Cure songs with heavy drum machine beats can exist in any world I'm a part of.

Inception of Eternity Last Exit to the Past (darkSIGN)

And really, that description fits only about half of the songs here. The sounds branch out from there, adhering to no particular school of sound. It's kinda metal, kinda industrial and definitely somewhere in the goth world. With prog leanings--just for the hell of it.

A lot of extreme metal bands have done well mixing up those sounds, but I haven't heard a band try to cover the gamut of more commercial loud music in a long time. I suppose I have to mention that the one thing that brings these songs together is killer hooks. Anthemic? Of course. And really, really addictive.

Yes, there's a lot of comfortable cheese in here. If you grew up in the 80s (or have a fascination for that time in music), imagine if Lita Ford and Trent Reznor co-fronted Nine Inch Nails, with Adrian Smith throwing in a solo here and there. And more keyboards. I kept wondering when I would get tired of this album. Well, I haven't yet. It's a big-ass ball of fun. Quite the wave to ride.

Jon Worley