It's really rare that you'll hear a band cover any given song recorded by another band and have it a) sound exactly like the original and b) sound exactly like the original. The repeat of terms is intentional. It's practically impossible, and surely a daunting task when given the challenge to duplicate somebody else's material. With "Masterpieces", Swedish Heavy Metal flag-wavers HAMMERFALL take a crack at covering bands that inspired them throughout the years, some of which include ACCEPT, JUDAS PRIEST, KISS, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, HELLOWEEN and SKID ROW.

"Masterpieces" is HAMMERFALL's nod to the "true gods" of Metal that have given them the motivation to be in a Heavy Metal band themselves over the past 10 years. The disc features 18 tracks in total, consisting of cover songs recorded during the course of their career, plus three brand new previously unreleased songs that the band recorded exclusively for this release ("Flight Of The Warrior" by RIOT, "Youth Gone Wild" by SKID ROW and "Aphasia" by EUROPE). The rest of the tracks were all previously released on EPs, CD singles or as bonus tracks on HAMMERFALL albums. So in a nutshell, what you're getting here is basically a near complete collection of HAMMERFALL covers, all under one roof.

At the top is "Child Of The Damned" (originally recorded by WARLORD), followed by STORMWITCH's "Ravenlord", and both stay true to their original sound. "I Want Out" (originally recorded by HELLOWEEN as part of 1988's "Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II") features Kai Hansen himself on vocals, which on one hand is a nice touch, but makes you wonder why Joacim Cans didn't do much by way of vocals. HAMMERFALL do a good job of ACCEPT's "Head Over Heels", which features Udo Dirkschneider sharing a portion of the vocal duties. It's no secret that HAMMERFALL have always been ACCEPT fans, so it's obvious why they included this classic from 1984's "Balls To The Wall".

Some real standouts would be "Youth Gone Wild" (very smoothly duplicated by HAMMERFALL), "Rising Force" (the band are joined by keyboardist Jens Johansson) and "HEAVY LOAD's "Run With The Devil". "Breaking The Law" is probably the biggest disappointment though. It's sloppy and sounds as if the band rushed through it instead of paying close attention to details and making it sound at least a little more like the original.

Surely, it's every Metal band's dream to be as big and as successful as their mentors. Success doesn't necessarily mean making millions of dollars (and these days the reality is you won't find more than a handful of bands making a fraction of that). Success also means reaching the widest possible audience, and recruiting new fans every day while maintaining your already established fan-base. HAMMERFALL have earned their Metal badge by commanding legions of fans across the globe. Releasing "Masterpieces" not only satiates their need to pay respect to those they looked up to while they were growing up, but also gives their fans something to dip their hands into while waiting for the next HAMMERFALL studio album. Pretty good stuff.