Band:	Out Of The Lair
Album:	Psychotears
Style:	Extreme power metal
Release date:	October 2003

01. Intronoise-X
02. Flying Surf
03. G.O.D.
04. Nosferatu
05. Wolverine's Knights
06. Vampire Lady
07. Last Time Of Firechild
08. Psychotears
09. Out Of The Lair

Greece has spawned many good bands in the last years, there are plenty of name to be mentioned but I'm not going to do it, because the subject of this article is to talk about Out Of The Lair, a Greek band and this, their debut album "Psychotears", a self-released album but with a great investment on its release.

The Cd art and packaging is top-notch, the jewel case comes in a slipcase giving an elegant touch to the release, the artwork is also great, and the Cd has a multimedia section, so my first clue is that these guys take their job seriously, not like those bands that send their Cd-r with a black & white photocopy and pretend that we listen to their bad productions and terrible ideas, I mean, I'm not against the Cd-r, not everyone can afford to release a Cd with the proper packaging, but there are bands that just don't make an effort.

Out Of The Lair is a band that mixes Power Metal with Thrash Metal, think Iced Earth meets Helloween or something like that. The production is good although a little bit weird in the mix for my tastes, anyway, what the band is playing is by no means unique or completely original, but I least doesn't give the me "I've heard this somewhere" sensation.

After a completely annoying intro "Intronoise-X" the opening track "Flying Surf" kicks in with powerful riffs ands furious soloing, and sounds really good? until Spyros, the vocalist starts to sing, he don't have the worst voice of the universe, but he can get very irritating from while to while, mostly when he screams trying to reach some high notes, besides, his English pronunciation need a lot of practice.

The good thing is that he lets go a growl once in a while, that gives a extra aggressive touch to the music, prime example of this is the song "Nosferatu" it begins with some great growling, until Spyros switches to clean vocals, which can be good at times, but totally exasperating also. Some more growls comes courtesy from Mr. Sakis Tolis (Rotting Christ), he does backing vocals on "Out Of The Lair " and "Psychotears", my favorite song in the album because it contains also female vocals.

Musicianship is great in this album, vocals are bad, presentation is excellent, lyrics are laughable, production is very professional, English pronunciation is poor. So many mixed feelings about this album, I think I'm going to wait for their next album to see how the band evolves to see if they can make it or not.