Future World＜限定盤/Shaped Picture Vinyl＞

After achieving regional success with their first three records, Danish rockers Pretty Maids released Future World. Fueled by constant airplay on MTV's Headbanger's Ball and fresh off of a Scandinavian tour with Black Sabbath, the band finally had a record that connected with American audiences. Future World falls into some of the same traps that have ensnared past metal bands taking a detour into pop, as in "We Came to Rock," a diluted facsimile of Ronnie James Dio's superb "We Rock." However, the blistering title track boasts a killer guitar riff, a driving rhythm section, and lead vocalist Ronnie Atkins' full-throated Klaus Meine-like snarl. Keyboardist Alan Owen punctuates Ken Hammer's licks with a refreshing urgency that's the direct antithesis of wimpy contemporaries like White Lion and Night Ranger. And even requisite '80s power ballads -- a painful genre unto itself -- like "Love Games" and "Eye of the Storm" sound less contrived than anything that Europe ever recorded. ~ James Christopher Monger