ROB ROCK: Garden of Chaos

Produced by Carl-Johan Grimmark
Released: September 2007

It's hard to believe I almost let this one slip under my radar, because Garden of Chaos is one of the most arse-kicking albums of pure metal to have been blessed my ears so far this year.

Not to be confused with the similarly-named producer behind the mess that was St Anger, Rob Rock is a singer with molten metal pumping through his veins. There is probably few guys as consistent in music than this guy; virtually everything this man lends his voice to is pure quality. From his string of albums with Chris Impelliteri and contributions with Driver, M.A.R.S., Warrior and others to his batch of solo albums, Rock nary puts a foot wrong. So it continues with his latest effort.

Garden of Chaos is just one pure metal track after the next, with no thought of pandering to any trends, taking divergent pathways through orchestral excesses or weird excursions into bland melodic rock in hopeless bids for airplay. With nothing but heavy metal power, Rock just blazes through 11 tracks of absolute ownage, helped out by the ridiculous talents of Roy Z, Bobby Jarzombek and Gus G among others. That the production credits are in the hands of Carl-Johan Grimmark is an amusing irony, because this is the sort of album that his band Narnia could only aspire to in their dreams: heavy, catchy, fast and rocking without the flouncy pretentious bits and lame power metal bullshit.

Picking a highlight on here is virtually a moot point because every song is a ripper, and even the ballad dedicated to his infant son actually sounds heartfelt. Rock's a practising Christian so as usual you can expect to find a lot of Biblical references and in some respects Garden of Chaos is a semi-conceptual exploration of the nature of sin, but unlike many of his contemporaries Rock uses his songs to explore Christian theme rather than just hitting people over the head with preachy dogma so that even people without a shred of religiosity within can just lose themselves in the music and headbang into a frenzy.

Another killer album from one of the best metal artists in circulation.

1. Garden of Chaos
2. Satan's Playground
3. Savior's Call
4. This Time is the Last Time
5. Only a Matter of Time
6. Spirit in the Sky
7. Metal Breed
8. Millenial Reign
9. Unconditional
10. Ride the Wind
11. Ode to Alexander

Rating: 95%