To be honest, I've never heard of this band before…I was never interested in such bands, but now I took For Crown And Ring (this title brings the familiar MANOWAR song in mind) in my hands.
M.A.D. come from Germany and were formed in 2003. Since then they have released an EP called Ready To Stop?! (2006) and a full-length album called M.A.D. (Maniacal Area Damage) (2007). For Crown And Ringis their second album. It's heard that Bach's voice bears comparison with Bon Scott's one. For fuck's sake… I personally didn't find any similarity between these voices and definitely Scott's voice is unique.
For Crown And Ring consists of 10 songs which I can say are good. Their sound and their style in general is a mixture of MANOWAR, ACCEPT, HAMMERFALL and AC/DC. I think that it's a nice combination if you want to succeed but it's not that good to recycle the same things. There are songs like Don't Sell Your Soul and The Warrior that are pretty heavy and can stick to your mind. The sound as well as the production are pretty good. The cover in my opinion is not that suitable for this album. I mean, when I took it in my hands I thought that I had to do with a Power/Epic band, but M.A.D.'s sound is more into Heavy Metal/Hard Rock.
To conclude, For Crown And Ring is just another Heavy Metal album to me. It doesn't have anything special, but if you like the classic sound give it a try and maybe you'll like it.
Tracklist:
Don't Sell Your Soul Night Crawler Crown And Ring Movin' On (Through Time) Mr.Wannabe The Warrior A Long Hard Road Bad Boy Boggie Nutbush City Limits Let The Days Go By
Lineup:
Jochen S. Bach - Vocals Robert Mayer - Guitar Andreas Laubmeiner - Bass Martin Pöndl - Drums