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Tears of Anger are yet another example of the high caliber of Rock and Metal bands coming out of the Scandinavian music scene. Yet how many Rock and Metal fans in America, for example, have heard of Tears of Anger, and how many guitar enthusiasts, outside or even inside of guitar circles, have heard of the extraordinary guitarist Benny Jansson? He released no less than three Fusion albums prior to organizing Tears of Anger with his brother Bjorn, who handles the vocals. American and European audiences alike would do well to shine the spotlight on Tears of Anger and recognize their superb musicianship, stylization, and production values. In the Shadows deserves to be brought out of the shadows and enjoyed by Heavy Rock and Metal fans around the world.

The new album is Tears of Anger's second release and features the same lineup as on their debut (Still Alive, 2004, Lion Music), with Benny Jansson on guitar and keyboards, Bjorn Jansson on vocals, Daniel Flores (Mind's Eye) on drums, and Johan Niemann (Mind's Eye, Therion) on bass.

Of the twelve cuts, all of which are strong, about half possess a progressive feel similar to Jorn Lande's songwriting as well as his vocal style. The other songs stay closer to a Blues base, but are still ultra-heavy. Bjorn Jansson's soulful singing on the latter cuts is often akin to Doug Pinnick's (King's X), with those extended Blues phrases and that emotional vibrato. Moreover, King's X fans will appreciate some of Benny Jansson's wicked guitar riffs à la Ty Tabor.

Benny's lead guitar work displays maturity far above the average Metal speedster. He has an intense lead style of his own, but for the sake of comparison, his light touch, fluidity and overall technical ability are on par with the likes of wizards such as Kee Marcelo (K2, Europe) or even Allan Holdsworth. His solos are picture-perfect and show off some incredibly fast runs and slick legato lines. Although for this album, he keeps a rein on his instrumental chops, perhaps too tightly. There are no lengthy, exhibitionistic solos here, nor any flights of Fusion (for those, check out Benny's solo albums).

The striking quality of the music on In the Shadows is the huge atmosphere, a result of the synergies between the instrumentation and the arranging. One can imagine instrumental versions of some of the songs serving well as a powerful movie soundtrack. Interesting keyboard synth sounds are smartly integrated in the arrangements; they fill out the soundscape and make the guitars larger than life. By the way, the album was produced, engineered, and mixed by Benny Jansson.

The inclusion of songs with a dark, heavy Prog-Metal flavor, as well as those with a straighter, heavy Blues approach, makes In the Shadows a very satisfying album. A longer guitar solo here and there and a greater variety of instrumentation would have been pluses, but the album is highly recommended for its large sound, high-energy songs, expert guitar work and outstanding production.

Band history still to come.

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Tears Of Anger - Still Alive (7,5/10) - Sweden - 2004

Genre: Heavy Metal
Label: Lion Music
Playing time: 42:24
Band homepage: Tears Of Anger

Tracklist:

The Awakening
Still Alive
Afraid Of The Dark
Sword Of Sorrow
Nightmare
Moment Of Truth
Revenge Will Come
Watch Me Run
Walk Away
Kings Call
Who Am I

We write the year 2004, the gentlemen Björn and Benny Jansson set out to combine AOR and Metal under the banner of TEARS OF ANGER. OK, the two guys originally started out under the name of MINDCRIME in the early Nineties and still in the Nineties formed TEARS OF ANGER, but that only on the side. An album that they recorded for Montezuma Records completely sunk, never released, after which Benny released TWO ROCKS, with songs that Björn originally had wanted to use for a different project. They continued until they finally decided to reanimate TEARS OF ANGER and go into the studio.

“Still Alive“ is the result of this mission and I must say that the guys do a really good job with it. You will find AOR as well as Power Metal of the Scandinavian school and also several progressive elements to loosen up the whole thing. So the beginning of “The Awakening” reminds me a lot of the Prog masters, with a light EVERGREY touch, before the voice of Björn Jansson sets in and the music also gets straighter to culminate in a very catchy chorus of the Scandinavian school, very good start!

And the following title track proves this even further, showing the Swedes’ ability to combine catchy Rock with powerful guitars and demanding breaks, but without losing track of their goal. “Sword Of Sorrow” shows us the a bit more epic, at times balladesque side of TEARS OF ANGER, but without forgetting to step on the gas a bit, while “Nightmare” right after unleashes double-bass and more intricate guitar lines and celebrate the Scandinavian neo-classical Metal.

Especially in the choruses Björn packs his voice into velvet, while in between, befitting the music, also gets a bit more powerful, especially in combination with the at times surprisingly strong progressive elements, “Revenge Will Come” is the best example for this, here TEARS OF ANGER sound a bit like a bit more progressive JORN in the song structure, a compliment, I’d like to add!

On “Kings Call“ the boys cross over into Melodic Rock, with a lot of groove and a super-catchy, very melodic chorus, which successfully makes sure that to drift off into the unfortunately often rather sappy majority of this style, before letting out a truly monstrous chorus that captures you right away.

A more than good debut, I would say, which definitely hits the target very well, a nice change. If you always had thought that Melodic Rock needed more guitars and that Power Metal would sound so much better with softer choruses, then check out TEARS OF ANGER, chances are good that you won’t regret it! (Online October 27, 2004)

	Tears of Anger Still Alive (Lion Music,2004) Producer: Benny Jansson/Bjorn Jansson Style: Hard rock Format: Album Website: www.tearsofanger.com Reviewed by: Kaj www.melodic.net

I know some of my friends just can´t listen to numetal or other modern hard rocking bands,they want the old school of classic 70´s or 80´s sounding hard rock but not many new bands manages to get it straight. If they do have that old style,the good songs are missing or the production is too lame but in this case with the new Swedish band Tears of Anger-I can give all you suckers for classic melodic hard rock a real treat to look into with the tip of their debut "Still Alive". I,myself am a huge fan of Graham Bonnet and just love the albums "Down to Earth" (Rainbow),"Assault attack" (MSG) and "Disturbing the peace" (Alkatrazz) that he sings on,so it is with joy I can present to you this band that recorded the follow up album to MSG´s Assault attack that never Schenker/Bonnet made. Singer Bjorn Jansson sounds like a mix of Bonnet and Jorn Lande,a terrific voice perfectly made for this mighty hard rock album and his guitarplaying brother Benny Jansson is known for his much appreciated solo works and the Two Rocks album. Benny´s riffs hails somewhere between Schenker and Vai,the album should have a warning sign of being addictive to playing airguitar.The idea of Tears of anger began when the brothers wanted to mix AoR and Metal together, to create something dark yet so melodic no one could resist their music. They drafted drummer Daniel Flores (Minds Eye, Faro) and bassist Johan Niemann (Therion) into the band and the success was a fact,"Still Alive" is like a book that shows you how to make a good song and play it right,when so many of our old heroes can´t write and record great albums any longer like they used to......it´s so nice to hear that Tears of Anger fills that hole greatly.