My friend/ work colleague Steven regularly takes the piss out of me when I order power metal at our local shop. He found Celestial Entrance by Pagan’s Mind particularly mirthful, the mere mention of Odin creases him up and he leaves the room when we have our Friday afternoon youtube fun when I begin to look for power metal. God only knows what he’d make of this, Wizard’s seventh opus. Look to your right, check out those song titles; Witch of the Enchanted Forest, Call to the Dragon, Sword of Vengeance, Two Faces of Balthasar and the quite frankly hilarious return of the Thunder Warriors! If you find power metal risible (and many do) stop reading immediately because it is entirely within the realms of possibility that Wizard have created their best album yet, a contender for album of the year and who knows, a near classic. 

Wizard, to be truthful also look bloody silly as well but that’s not important when they make such a memorable racket. The aforementioned Witch of the Enchanted Forest sounds like it should be on a Rhapsody (of Fire) but actually features HammerFall style gang vocals in the chorus and is an exceptionally strong opener. Pale Rider – “The bringer of death” is the second track and is more low key but still a goodie. This is followed by Call to the Dragon, which opens furiously in a Dream Evil stylee before launching into a typically silly but wonderful chorus. By the, the dragon is, of course, in the sky! 

Children of the Night isn’t (sadly) a Dream Evil cover but is instead a mid tempo rocker and “we dance on the graves of those who have died.” Nice. Black Worms is supremely power metal and introduces us to the first high-pitched scream of the album and takes us nicely to the halfway point of the album. 

Lonely in Desertland takes a step away from straight forward power metal and shows definite progressive leanings and just goes to show that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks. In parts it is almost reminiscent of Rammstein, which, is a bit weird. Dragon’s Death is truly excellent and would provide more evidence for the naysayers with the booming, “WHY” which appears just before the chorus. I love it though. 

The remaining songs are all top notch as well. Sword of Vengeance has ball achingly high-pitched vocals and furious riffing, whilst Two Faces of Balthasar is slightly more melodic yet extremely powerful. Return of the Thunder Warriors rounds off a quite excellent album in fine fashion. It’s a fist in the air anthemic way to finish things off and ensures that there’s not a duff track on Goochan which is a real rarity these days. 

Goochan is (naturally) a concept album. If you really want to know the story you’ll have to buy it to find out the facts because I’m not going to tell you! Suffice to say, that you actually should purchase this forthwith.

Let us know your views on 'Goochan'

Track List

Witch Of The Enchanted Forest
Pale Rider
Call To The Dragon
Children Of The Night
Black Worms
Lonely In Desertland
Dragons Death
Sword Of Vengeance
Two Faces Of Balthasar
Return Of The Thunderwarriors 

 Line Up

Sven D’Anna - vocals/keyboards
Dano Boland - guitars
V. Leson - bass
S. van Heek - drums