Brainstorm - Liquid Monster (2005)

I like Brainstorm, and have recently been comparing them with fellow Germans Paragon, who play a similar style (i.e. not fantasy and flying choruses, but somewhat darker, and with roaring, sometimes chanting choruses), but these lads have been doing consistent heavy metal right from the start, and this sixth album is probably their best to date. 
 They're not doing anything exceptionally new, but the songs are consistently catchy, highlights including "Inside The Monster", "All Those Words" and "Despair To Drown" (even if vocalist Andy Franck, who's great throughout, slips into Mustaine-mode there), while "Heavenly" is that rare power metal ballad that works!
The music is mostly mid-tempo, with moments of speed, and the lyrics are personal introspection. Oh, and the cover is great.  My imagination plays with those monsters (or is it one monster in three guises) terrifying an unsuspecting community and turning them to blue liquid with a touch. Or something along those lines.
While I might go ga ga over the likes of Freedom Call and Rhapsody, Brainstorm provide a good alternative to the power metal genre, and they keep bringing out worthy material.

****