My name is Martin Brandt and I am a writer for "HEAVY" and "That's METAL" magazines in Germany. I recently found out about your band ANCIENT CROSS and your music through a good friend of mine. He strongly recommended your music and he played one of your songs for me, it was called "The Queen Is Dead".

I absolutely loved it! I am always looking for talented metal bands to feature in my magazines...

I hope to hear from you!

Bye and take care, Martin

Ancient Cross went on to be featured in two copies of Heavy Magazine and had their song "The Queen Is Dead" included on the magazines compilation cd that year.

Attention all 80's metal heads: here's a very promising new band out of Texas that you need to check out. Right from the gate "The Queen is Dead" comes blasting out, all full metal riffing (multiple riffs working well in the context of a song) and great solos bursting out everywhere. It's topped off with those killer sometimes clear, often rough and raw (but fully decipherable) vocals and bottomed out by by solid bass and drums. A full "head bang while singing along" inducer here. The only complaint on this song is the under four minute length.

Next up (I think, the track list doesn't seem to match the order) is "The Hourglass" which continues a spot on presentation of the 80's metal spirit, this time showing that light and shade can be used for dramatic effect without resorting to power balladry. Last but certainly not least is "Forsaken", another very solid song that shows an iron hard consistency in songwriting and an ability to introduce some blues based swagger without sacrificing an ounce of metal.

For some reason this reminds me just a tad of Destiny's "Atomic Winter" LP (not at all a bad thing, I consider that an underrated gem). All in all this has me eagerly anticipating a full length later this year. If all the songs on the full length are of this caliber, it's going to blow some minds.

Ancient cross is as band that has endured through thick and thin thru its long lived career with a Classic Metal sound and style that has been sorely missed in the Metal community of today. With influences ranging from Helstar,Fates Warning,Queensryche,And Mercyful Fate to name but a few this band has some even rarer qualities in that they also are heavily Influenced by some of the greatest metal bands from San Antonio to have ever played:Byfist,SA Slayer,Watchtower and many others..Michael Lances vocals are as fresh and new to the bands sound as you can find and while many singers could easily pull off being a moderate to high pitch vocalist in a band like Ancient Cross they could never have the true METAL background that he has portrayed on this sampler. While the sampler I received to review is Short,with only 3 songs its a small peek at what is yet to come on their new release due out soon in the next few months and of what will surely be a Superb METAL album.

..:: Track By Track ::..

"The Queen Is Dead"- The 1st song on the sampler opens up with an addictive riff thats very close to an early mercyful fate and queensryche sound.As the song progressess the vocals and the melody shift in both pitch and harmony as Michael drops from a lower range in his vocal style to a sudden elevation in pitch that is similar to what all the metal greats such as King Diamond ,Geoff Tate and John Arch became famous for in the early era of Metal. On this song he screams and growls and keeps you on the edge. The music keeps a steady pace and the band adds its accents and breaks in all the right places with a slight wah added to the solo that creates an overall wall of sound that is really impressive.
"Hourglass"-Upon hearing the first notes on this song I was taken back to Queensryche's "The lady wore black" there is a very similar pattern that then leads up to the opening guitar solo followed by the songs vocals.The song cotinues with another short solo after the 1st verses followed by a slightly heavier chorus and yet another solo that builds up speed nicely.The bass playing near the end of this track is really excellent with a couple of key notes here and there to keep the song building in dynamics as the song closes out .A nice touch to the ending is the added harmonics on Miguels part,although a bit of an added delay or chorus would help the overall sound on this track immensely.My only complaint would be the guitars overall sound on this track they just sound a bit too raw.

"Forsaken"- The last track here is a really fine Metal tune that opens with JOE on the wah and playing a solo that really fits the song.Coming right out of the solo with a great pounding Power riff that is then followed with some well placed Breaks and accents. If you arent banging your head by now YOU MY FRIEND are with out a pulse .The main melody played by Joe combines a solid riff in which he accents with the WAH pedal very nicely.The vocals follow the main melody and come across just as well.at about the 2:30 mark the guitar solo kicks in with another melody change and this fits the song just as well keeping the same song structure going as the speed builds up and gives the song an added boost.With Fists in the air and Horns saluting there is no other way to jam on this song .