Artist: Fallen Angel
Title: Crawling Out Of Hell
Type: Album & Book
Label: Fallen Angel Records

This mammoth package has been three years in the making and it’s easy to see why. Not content with creating a lavishly illustrated booklet to accompany their debut album – a concept album that tells the story of one man’s adventures in the realms of the afterlife – New Yorkers Fallen Angel have written a full length novel as well! It’s a hugely ambitious project but this is a band that likes to put 100% into everything they do, from their website to their press kit, their artwork to their lyrics and most of all their music. It’s the music that I want to talk about first here, because in purely musical terms Crawling Out Of Hell is an unmitigated triumph. The sound quality is excellent the individual performances exemplary and the song writing first class. This is one superbly executed album of epic metal. If you’re looking for comparisons then I personally picked up vibes from my favourite albums by Hellion, Helstar, Manilla Road, King Diamond, Iced Earth and Iron Maiden and Fallen Angel have created an album which can stand proudly in such company. Rob Lotta – who has worked with Joey Belladonna in the past - and John Cruppe make for a formidable guitar team; just check out their work on ‘The One Who Walks Alone’ for proof positive of that. Vocalist Steve Seniuk is another powerful weapon in the Fallen Angel armoury, bringing some distinctly Halford-esque qualities to the mix. Crawling Out Of Hell works both as a concept album and, with quality creations like the emotive ‘Sad Wings’, as a collection of engaging individual songs.

Guitarist John Cruppe is the main creative force in Fallen Angel, writing the bulk of both the music and lyrics and he’s also the author of the accompanying novel. It has to be said that the novel is not as successful as the album and Cruppe is definitely not as gifted a writer as he is a musician. I don’t want to be too harsh about this book as Cruppe’s grand vision is easily appreciated and I have huge admiration for his ambition and effort. However the book would have benefitted immensely from some serious proof reading and editing. The odd grammar, incorrect word usage, flitting between tenses, repetitive descriptions and simple inconsistencies cause irritation and distract you from what is basically an interesting story. The dialogue in particular is hard to digest and the occasional segments of rather simplistic teaching. Despite all this criticism though I did manage to read Crawling Out Of Hell from cover to cover and not feel as if I’d wasted my time – which is more than I can say about some recognised authors’ work. There are some great illustrations in the book and the CD booklet and I wonder if this story might not work best as a graphic novel?

Overall Fallen Angel’s first missive to the world is an outstanding achievement, for which they deserve great credit and recognition and apparently it is just part one of a trilogy. I’m looking forward to part two, to be entitled Cast Out Of Heaven, already.

http://www.fallenangelofficialwebsite.com
http://www.myspace.com/bandsitefallenangel