Toby Hitchcock United States

"Take a very talented AOR friendly vocalist and put him together with a talented multi-instrumentalist and produce, and the end result is likely to be something along the lines of Toby Hitchcock's debut album, "Mercury's Down".

Hitchcock has the pipes just for this kind of melodic metal/hardrock, and from beginning to end, his vocals are just impressive. Equally impressive is Erik Martensson's performance on all instruments, and he plays each instrument as if it were his primary instrument.

Musically, I guess this release is perhaps primarily melodic hard rock, but there are plenty of heavy metal elements all over the place, and tracks like 'Tear Down the Barricades', 'A Different Drum', and 'Mercury's Down' are, for my money, all out heavy metal tunes. One thing that characterizes this album is how uplifting a lot of the tracks are, and how catchy the vocal melodies are.

In all, this is a well-balanced AOR-friendly melodic metal release which has a lot of hit potential, and, if you like your rock music hard-hitting and melodic at the same time, you should check this release out.

(review originally posted at metalmusicarchives.com)"