review by: Roberto Martinelli

This French power metal band sounds a great deal like Stratovarius. Even vocalist Ben Sotto's delivery often sounds like Timo Koltipelto's signature yelps. During some of the guitar solos, Heavenly show some chops that Iron Maiden (most specifically, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son) immortalized in the 80s. Later on in the disk, blatant Angra worship is made clear: the opening to the last track, "Until the End," sounds EXACTLY like Angra's "Evil Warning" from the Angels Cry album; I initially thought it was a cover. Sotto even does that slide-whistle thing with his voice that Andre Matos does.

This all means you can expect run-of-the mill melodic, happy, double bass overkill-driven power metal. If you're at all on the fence about this genre, steer clear. What Heavenly have got going for them is excellent musicianship, good energy, and a talented singer.

Like just about all of the power metal put out by Noise (and on any label featuring power metal bands coming out of Europe). However, Heavenly is little more than a gifted copycat band. If this is something you can live with, then you may enjoy this. Hell, if you're a Stratovarius fan (I'm guilty), you accept getting the same album over and over again (that's why you like it), so you probably won't much mind the minor technicality that this isn't actually Stratovarius. This isn't a bad album by any means; in fact there was only one insufferably dodgy track, the ballad "The Angel."

All things considered, we would recommend you waiting for Sign of the Winner (it turned out to be impossible to get through this review without pointing out the dorkiness of the title) to turn up used.