Hammerfall - Masterpieces

In between studio albums it's a common practice for bands and labels to put out other material to tide their fans over and of course make a buck or two doing it. That can include live albums, DVDs, greatest hit packages or cover albums. For their latest CD Hammerfall has gone the cover CD route.

Masterpieces collects the various cover songs the band has released over the years along with a few that are previously unreleased. Hammerfall picked a wide variety of artists to cover. There are some very well known artists and songs like Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law" and Kiss' "Detroit Rock City." They also cover tracks from Rainbow, Loudness, Twisted Sister and Helloween. Hammerfall is a power metal band, but most of the songs are fairly close to the originals and aren't given the full power metal treatment.

There are several songs on the CD that you might not even realize were originally done by another band. Lesser known bands like Warlord, Stormwitch, Picture and Pretty Maids have their songs covered by Hammerfall. I actually like those best, because with some songs you just can't get past the original version. That's not the case with the obscure ones.

As far as the songs you've heard before, it's a mixed bag. Hammerfall speeds up "Breaking The Law" into a 2 minute song, and Joacim Cans has a great voice that can do justice to metal god Rob Halford. On the other hand, their by the book version of the cheesy Loudness song "Crazy Nights" falls a bit flat as does Skid Row's "Youth Gone Wild."

Masterpieces is a CD designed for Hammerfall fans, and it fits that purpose well. It will give them something different to listen to until their next studio CD, and if they pick up a few new fans along the way with this CD, that's just a bonus.

(released July 22, 2008 on Nuclear Blast Records)