'The Showdown' in question here is in fact the third instalment in a series of albums that comes after 2005's 'The Battle' and 2007's 'The Revenge' and marries the talents of the Jorn Lande and Russell Allen together in a ruddy massive melting pot of great vocals and world beating guitars!

To people who do not know who these players are - Russell Allen is the vocalist for US prog Metal band Symphony X, whilst Jorn Lande is the singer with Masterplan, so the pedigree is unquestionably there, but can the music hold up to their collective reputation?

'The Showdown' then is written once again by guitar hero Magnus Karlsson (Primal Fear, Starbreaker) and mixed by Achim Kohler (Primal Fear, Kiske/Sommerville) and comes complete with sweeping piano and keyboards, heavy guitar riffs, virtuoso guitar solos, hooky choruses and the vocal talents of two of the finest Heavy Metal vocalists around.

Whilst for me there aren't any real "standout" tracks - you can't help but pull out the air guitar and rock along, and I'm even breaking out the air keyboards on some tracks like 'Never Again' and 'Turn All Into Gold'

So all in all this is a good album - it's just that nothing here stands out above the rest.

http://www.myspace.com/allenlande2