ANGEL OF EDEN – The End Of Never

Roger Staffelbach’s career started at the tender age of 15 years old after hearing Yngwie Malmsteen’s Trilogy record. That paved the way for him to start playing the local scene and eventually he started taking lessons at Jazz School and ended up at LA’s GIT/MI. Roger has been featured in Young Guitar and Guitar Magazine in Japan as well as numerous other publications around the world. His world was about to change, though, when Mike Varney at Shrapnel Records contacted him after Roger sent him an instrumental demo. Along with keyboard prodigy Vitalij Kuprij, they started Atlantis Rising, which later became Artension; members of this band, including Roger and Vitalij, were John West (Badlands and Royal Hunt), Mike Terrana (Malmsteen and Rage), and Kevin Chown. And, after recording seven albums with Artension, Roger has still found time to branch out and do other projects like Angel of Eden.

Wow! Be prepared to be kicked in the head and face! The End Of Never starts off with the blasting title track “The End Of Never” and Roger Staffelbach’s shredding guitar prowess and Carsten Lizard Schulz’s amazing vocals! You might recognize Carsten from Domain, Fate Of Nations, Forever, Evidence One, and that’s just to name of few. Now he’s lending his awesome voice to Roger’s Angel of Eden project. The second song “Dreamchaser” starts off pretty much kicking your ass when Carsten starts to sing; you’d almost swear you’re hearing Tony Martin off of Black Sabbath’s TYR album from back in the day. What a great song! Roger is no less than brilliant; you can close your eyes and just see his fingers burning up the fretboard! The third song, “Angel Of Eden” has great harpsichord sounding keyboards, double kick drums, and amazing vocal harmonies. And, with each song being anywhere from three and a half minutes to just a little over six minutes, you get just enough but not too much; it’s perfectly balanced in all aspects. Skipping down to track eight is “Keys To Avalon,” which starts off like your favorite all time Metal song and it just has all of those elements of a great Heavy Rockin’ song; galloping guitar riff, keyboards, pounding drums, bass guitar perfectly in time with the drums, and Carsten’s ever melodic voice. This easily could be a favorite off this album.

As a musician, this is an album to be extremely proud of and as a fan you would definitely want The End Of Never in your stack of CD’s that goes everywhere with you! And last but not least, track eleven, “You Don’t Remember” has a great Dokken flavor to it, while still maintaining the integrity of being its own song. This could easily be your perennial break-up song or make out song! Do yourself a favor and check out Angel Of Eden.