Just as Victor Smolski wrote all the music for the first part of NUCLEAR BLAST ALLSTARS, the second part, titled "Out Of The Dark," was helmed by Peter Wichers, former guitarist of SOILWORK. He recorded all guitar parts and, on many tracks, the bass and keyboard parts as well, while the invited vocalists wrote the lyrics. So let's see what came of the second installment of this "all-star" project.
The disc opens with songs for Anders Fridén and Peter Tägtgren. IN FLAMES have been on NB since their third album "Whoracle," released in 1997. For Peter Tägtgren, his collaboration with NB began with a split in 1992, and all HYPOCRISY releases — and later PAIN releases — have consistently come out on NB. Despite Wichers' claim that he tried to tailor his approach individually to each vocalist, the first two tracks are remarkably similar and steeped in a modern metal vein with plenty of clean vocals. This tendency is somewhat relieved by a speedy banger for Jari Mäenpää, former vocalist and leader of ENSIFERUM and current frontman of WINTERSUN — musically, direct parallels arise with DIMMU BORGIR's 2001 and 2003 albums, so strikingly similar is the style. A sort of extreme mid-tempo power metal is what we hear in the fourth track. The vocalist of SCAR SYMMETRY delivers verses in a low growl and immediately switches to extremely melodic choruses — in other words, we hear a continuation of the modern metal aesthetic. Why DESTRUCTION leader Schmier participated in the first volume of NUCLEAR BLAST ALLSTARS while ARMORED SAINT vocalist and former ANTHRAX frontman Bush ended up shoved into this one is an open question for Wichers and the NB management. For his former boss, SOILWORK leader Björn Strid, Wichers prepared what can essentially be called a ballad, performed entirely in clean vocals. A decent melodic death metal composition was written for KATAKLYSM vocalist Maurizio Iacono. And an outright punk song went to Mark Osegueda, vocalist of DEATH ANGEL — it was NB that gave this band a second life after 14 years of obscurity. The penultimate track is given to SONIC SYNDICATE vocalists Richard Sjunnesson and Roland Johansson — the track is utterly forgettable. The album closes with yet another forgettable song, this time for MNEMIC vocalist Guillaume Bideau.
Now the question: why is the disc called "Out Of The Dark" — where is the darkness here? While the first part had songs featuring Peavy, Schmier, Kürsch, and Dörris that were absolutely incompatible with anything light, here eight out of ten songs don't remotely qualify as dark. Overall, the disc is quite monotonous — the bulk of the tracks are in a modern metal vein, with occasional slides into melodic death and metalcore, but on the whole, with minimal exceptions, the songs are embarrassingly identical. Why the disc includes entirely mediocre vocalists but not, say, Shagrath or Eric Fish (SUBWAY TO SALLY) is a separate question. The disc is excellently recorded and mixed — that is the only factor preventing a total rejection. However, while the first part had noticeable shortcomings against a generally quite solid backdrop, this second part is essentially one big shortcoming with occasionally gleaming merits.