Album Review: Doro - Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
The metal queen herself Doro Pesch is back with another album. In fact it is her thirteenth full length titled “Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud”. Since the end of Warlock in 1989, Doro has forged a solo career which has seen some strong albums but also some poor ones but Doro is unwavering in her love and devotion to heavy fucking metal and on “Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud” that heavy metal love is loud and proud and resulting in one of the best albums that the metal queen has produced.
Doro loves classic hard rock and classic heavy metal and the material on “Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud” is very much in that style but with a really nice mix of sounds and styles that fall within the realms of hard rock and heavy metal. It is this variation that ensures that this album is so strong and also shows the strengths of the songwriting skills of Doro and her co-musicians. You get everything from sweeping and epic melodic metal such as ‘Children Of The Dawn’, the riotous speed metal of ‘Fire In The Sky’, the fust pumping true metal of ‘Lean Mean Rock Machine’, the classic rock leanings of ‘Bond Unending’ and the power ballad of ‘Fels In Der Brandung’ which is sung in Doro’s native tongue. A highlight is easily one of the heaviest songs that Doro has done which is ‘I Will Prevail’ and it is pure heavy metal glory.
“Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud” is a hefty album. The standard edition comes in at 15 songs and the special edition has another five bonus songs. The album does suffer from being just that bit too long and there are a few unnecessary songs such as the cover versions of ‘Living After Midnight’ (Judas Priest) and ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ (Bonnie Tyler). Although these covers are fun they should have been relegated to bonus songs.
Despite the length and the amount of songs there is no denying the quality here as it is a fantastically strong set of songs which really show just how passionate Doro is about what she does. Her love and enthusiasm really bursts forth from these songs and I would go so far as to say this is probably the best Doro album since her debut solo release “Force Majeure” in 1989. The fact that Doro can do an album this strong into his career is testament to her character and her undying love of metal music. On their thirteenth album, musicians can start to phone in their albums but “Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud” is the real deal.
