At Vance - Chained (2005)

At Vance's sixth album, and their first after a two year break (a long time by their standards) has them down to a trio, and the quality of music down as well.
While never reaching breathtaking heights, these Germans could always be counted on to provide some good, solid power metal, but this is a very disappointing collection of largely forgettable music. The highlight is the rather mellow "Heaven", which shows that even faster pieces like the concluding "Run For Your Life" can't cut the mustard much anymore. There are a couple of classical interludes from Bach (briefly), and Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", but if there was ever a record where they could have gone for one of their pop covers, this should have been it.
Chained is modest and quite ordinary, by far the worst in At Vance's catalogue to this point.

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