Flametal are hailing from Berkeley, California and they have been around in the scene since 2004. This is their fifth full length opus, first one in nine years. This is an interesting band. Why? Because, like the name says, they mix progressive metal, speed metal and flamenco into one dangerously contagious mixture of music. There are ten songs on this opus, with many interchangable parts, great melodies, almost gypsy like folk and ethno thrown in for good measure and all acoustic stuff which dominates with flamenco guitar being rounded with good old metal parts. the guys even covered ‘Bamboleo’ by Gypsy Kings in their own flamenco prog metal version and the energy of this record is just infective and double bass drumming of ‘Beyond The Horizon’ interplays perfectly with atmospheric parts and shows all the fire in the veins of flamenco. I didn’t know that this mixture could function so greatly, I enjoyed every single second of it although I am usually not a keen fan of records that are instrumentals per se. Great and innovative band this one.

7/10