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For the last few years, I've been a fairly huge fan of Vixen, a late 80s pop metal band consisting of four talented female musicians. I have always enjoyed their style of blending catchy pop hooks with their ability to rock hard, also given the fact that Vixen was the only female heavy metal group that I knew of at the time. Lita Ford was alright, and of course I give my props to Pat Benatar as well. I'd always heard a little bit about Warlock, a female fronted band, but I didn't actually give them a listen until fairly recently, so I finally decided to buy this compilation. Upon popping the disc in, I was BLOWN AWAY! Warlock was no sappy pop metal or glamourous hair metal act. No, this was REAL, balls-to-the-wall, in-your-face HEAVY METAL, something akin to Judas Priest, but with a female singer. And what a powerful vocalist Doro Pesche is! This German female vocalist can really belt out some shouts to absolutely GIANT anthems. I always love a good heavy metal album that can make my ears ring, and Warlock has no trouble getting the job done. Other than Judas Priest and maybe Accept, Warlock is perhaps one of the heaviest 80s heavy metal bands I've heard (not including thrash metal bands). They've replaced Vixen as my favorite female fronted band, and I consider Doro Pesche to be the official "Metalgoddess". Of course, she's not the only one that makes Warlock a great listen. The twin guitar attack of Rudy Graf and Peter Szigeti shreds through the songs with ease, and both bassist Frank Rittel and drummer Michael Eurich both keep up with the rest of the band decently, though they aren't really all too notable. So how does this compilation fare? Here's the lowdown of each album's representation in order of their releases:

BURNING THE WITCHES(1984)
TRACKS: Burning The Witches, Metal Racer
COMMENTS: These two raw, heavy-hitting rockers are the perfect way to start the compilation, and really grab your attention right off the bat. Still, as great as these two tracks are, I really would've liked to see more songs off the blazing debut album, such as 'Sign Of Satan' and 'Dark Fade'.

HELLBOUND(1985)
TRACKS: Hellbound, Earth Shaker Rock, Time To Die
COMMENTS: Warlock's heaviest album gets slightly better representation than the debut, but I would've still liked to see more songs like 'Wrathchild' (NOT the Iron Maiden song) and 'All Night'. Hellbound is a very fast and hard-rocking track, as is the equally excellent and fiery arena anthem 'Earth Shaker Rock'.

TRUE AS STEEL(1986)
TRACKS: Love In The Danger Zone, True As Steel
COMMENTS: Like the debut, this excellent album gets little representation. Where are 'Love Song', 'Mr. Gold', and 'Fight For Rock'? The two cuts are actually great songs though.

TRIUMPH AND AGONY(1987)
TRACKS: All We Are, Three Minute Warning, I Rule The Ruins, Metal Tango, Fur Immer
COMMENTS: Thankfully, there is plenty to show for Warlock's best and final album. 'All We Are' is a HUGE pounding anthem, and 'Three Minute Warning' is a short, yet frantic rocker. 'I Rule The Ruins' is Warlock at their commercial melodic best. The other two tracks, 'Metal Tango' and 'Fur Immer' are unique in style with the latter track being a ballad sung in German set to a military drum beat. I'd say that Triumph and Agony was represented very well.

FORCE MAJEURE(1989)
TRACKS: Hellraiser, Angel With Dirty Faces, Under The Gun, Something Wicked This Way Comes (NOT the Iced Earth song)
COMMENTS: With the exception of the last track, these are some great rockers, but WHY is there material from Doro's first solo album on here? This is a WARLOCK compilation! There should be a separate compilation covering Doro's solo years. Getting rid of these tracks would make room for more great rockers from earlier albums. With this album, Doro starts treading into pop metal territory, although I suppose that this album sounds close enough to Warlock to warrant inclusion. 'Hellraiser' and 'Under The Gun' both definitely sound like they belong on the earlier albums.

For the most part, Earth Shaker Rock manages to cover most of Warlock's notable material well, though because they didn't include enough earlier material and decided to randomly throw on Doro's solo material at the end, I'm only giving ESR four stars. Still, don't let that discourage you because this disc is definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of straight forward heavy metal music. It serves as a perfect introduction to the band if anything. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This CD will give the new listener a view of the early days of WARLOCK with awesome tracks like "Burning the Witches" "Hellbound", and "All We Are".

For the true DORO fan, Earthshaker Rock will give you over 6 years of DORO on one CD. It doesn't get any better than that...unless of course your watching DORO live.