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Doro – Forever Warriors // Forever United (Album Review)

Florian Buechting Media Review No Comments

Doro Pesch is back – before she will tour in late 2018/early 2019, she just released a double album: while the first CD, “Forever Warriors” is thought to be the most powerful metal part, the more ballad and emotional part is “Forever United”. Doro is not just the “Queen of Metal”, but also one of the most authentic and nicest German artists. Thus, I felt to review her album on Flyctory.com.

 

Doro – Forever Warriors

The first CD starts powerful with the first album release, All for Metal – what a metal anthem, reminding me a bit of All we are. The lineup for this song only is something like a “Who is who” for metal. Honestly, after not having bought some of her latest CDs, this song told me I have to go back on the Doro Pesch track:

At the end of 2018, I selected All for Metal as one of my five favourite songs of the year.

The album continues with full force – after the fast Bastardos, Doro joins Johan Hegg (Amon Amarth) for the dark ballad If I can’t have you – No one will. Amazing duet – and nice music video, by the way:

Two more great songs are following: Soldiers of Metal is a metal ballad – the genre where I feel Doro to be best. The lyrics of Turn it up feel to have some autobiagraphic elements and is definitely a nice song to chant live. This is also valid for the next track: with Blood, Sweat and Rock’n’Roll, the album stays powerful and adds an easy-chant party metal anthem.

The seventh track, Don’t break my heart again, just stays in your memories. Not the most complex lyrics, but Doro’s all-time anthem All we are will also never be nominated for the nobel prize, will it? Love’s gone to hell is the first track I somehow like to listen to, but it feels hard to memorize it after a while. The song in German, track #9 called Freunde fürs Leben (Lifetime friends), had some pop-alike elements to me. A bit similar in topic to legendary Für immer, but by far not that much potential.The tenth track, Backstage to Heaven, is very special to me as German comedian (and amazing jazz musician) Helge Schneider, known for songs like “Katzeklo” (cat tolilet… Don’t ask about German sense of humour…). The speedy song is really a nice track on the first CD.

Forever Warriors ends with three bonus track. Be strong sounds like a typical Doro song to me – like some songs recorded in the late 80’s. Might neither be progressive nor convince the critics – but I like it. The Black Ballad gives a nice ballad, you just start swaying to the strings. The first album ends with Bring my Hero back Home again, which is a very sad and slow number, feeling slightly like pub ballads. Nice lyrics and somehow nice song, but I would rather have put it on the Forever United part.

 

Doro – Forever United

The slower of the two albums starts with Résistance, whose chorus is a “battle” of the French word and its English equivalent “resistance”. Rock-song to start with. Lift me up felt like an average Doro ballad to me, the riffs close to the end of the track gave the song some additional character. Unfortunately, it did not catch me that much – and I have to say the same thing about the next track, Heartbroken, which has been supported by Whitesnake’s Doug Aldrich. It cuts so deep is very soft – however, it has a certain pop-alike airplay potential, even for the German market.

The fifth track, Love is a sin, is having some more power and I love the way Doro’s voice is arranged in this track.

With the powerful Living Life to the fullest the album becomes much stronger again. Doro wrote it for Lemmy Kilmister on the way to his funeral. I like It cuts so deep, but this was my favourite so far of the Forever United album.

While 1000 years is a ballad again, Fight through the Fire is a great and hard track. Nevertheless, the power tracks on Forever Warriors just feel better. The ninth track is another homage to Lemmy and Motörhead:

The bonus track section starts with Caruso, the first-ever Italian song recorded by the Metal Queen. A slow tempo song, sometimes with struggles in the pronounciation, but still something special. No wording problems in Tra como e Coriovallum, as the eleventh track is instrumental. The final song, the German and English sung Metal is my Alcohol, reminded me a bit of German drinking-song-metal god Tom Angelripper. The song catched me at the very beginning, but somehow could not keep it up. But at least, it is definitely something special:

 

Doro – Album Presentation in Cologne (20th Aug 2018)

I had the nice opportunity to purchase the album more or less from Doro directly presenting her album in the Saturn record store at Cologne Hansaring on 20th August 2018, just three days after release. The store is just a short walk away from my work, so this was a nice alternative to standard lunch breaks.

Some half an hour before the autograph session, there were already some fifty fans waiting for the Metal Queen. Finally, there must have been some hundred people in queue. Even if she needs to be pushed from time to time by her manager not to run out of time (“We have been criticized that I could not serve everyone last time”), there is always a friendly small talk with her, she also recognizes some of her fans or tells you if she especially likes pictures and fan art. Thus, Doro underlined that she is just an extremely friendly and open-minded person.

  

  

  

  

 

Doro – Forever Warriors // Forever United – My View

Releasing 25 tracks instead of one album is indeed a risky choice by Doro. Especially parts of the Forever United tracks feel to have less grip and thus easily seem to be some sort of “second choice”. The character of the two albums is very different – what I absolutely love about Forever United is that Doro proofs that her voice could even get radio attendance here in Germany. On the other hand, Forever Warriors is a very good metal album with a lot of really good tracks. It is a nice combo for a fair price, so I feel Doro made a good choice in releasing two albums in one. I definitely look forward to the tour and recommend to have a listen to these CDs.

 

Doro – Links to Amazon.de

If you want to purchase the double album, here are the purchase links to Amazon Germany:

 Doro – Forever Warriors / Forever United – CD:

 

 Doro – Forever Warriors / Forever United – Vinyl:

 

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