I am sure many in Quebec are familiar with guitarist extraordinaire Erik Simard from Foreign Journey (our local tribute to Foreigner and Journey), as well as Snakes and Leppards (our local tribute to Def Leppard and Whitesnake) who is joined by Pat and Mario (also from FJ) for a new project of all original material entitled Crystal Faith. 

Erik was kind enough to send me a press invitation to listen to the tracks in advance and I was extremely impressed. Their sound in my opinion is a true homage to what is called today Power Metal. This is a sub genre of Heavy Metal that is really characterized by soaring lead vocals, real melody and crushing riffs. Many of the big names of this sub genre include Helloween, Gamma Ray, Edguy, Angra, Sonata Arctica, Hammer Fall etc. and when you listen to it you hear the influences of bands like Dio, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Rush, Judas Priest, Maiden, Saxon, Sabbath, Ozzy, Scorpions, etc). Those were the glory days when Heavy Metal and Hard Rock was a family, a shared audience as opposed to what happened later when Metal became so extreme that real singing got replaced with horrendous guttural growls and the music lost all Rock n Roll roots. 

Hearty congrats to Crystal Faith for the new material and I recommend everybody to check it out and support the band.