Metal Underground.com

Since 2002, Astral Doors has been rocking across its native Sweden and the rest of Europe, with riffs and vocals that put the power in power metal. Several albums, tours, festivals and appearances with the likes of Grave Digger and Doro Pesch later, the band has come out with its first best-of collection, "Testament of Rock - The Best of Astral Doors." With tracks mostly picked by fans (a previously unheard track, "Victory," completes the collection), the album truly is a testament to the band's ability to combine near-operatic majesty with the ability to rock the hell out.

The press kit explains that guitarist Joachim Nordlund and drummer Johan Lindstedt were inspired to create songs in the vein of Dio, Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Deep Purple. Mission accomplished, boys. Of course, that mission wouldn't have succeeded without a superb singer, able to project the same sort of power as the late, great Ronnie James Dio. Nils Patrik Johansson fills the bill nicely, with a Dio-esque growl on tunes like "Bride of Christ," which has him also exploring some higher-range vocals.

The dual-guitar assault of Nordlund and Martin Haglund is particularly potent on faster songs like "Black Rain" and the definitely Dio-inspired "Time to Rock." Also impressive is the keyboard-playing by Jocke Roberg, which has a Jon Lord feel, with some excellent fills on "Time to Rock" and an excellent, if all-too-short solo on "Slay the Dragon."

Given that this is a greatest hits package, it's probably not surprising that there's only a couple bum tracks out of the 14. "New Revelation" has Johansson singing in a far different manner than on any of the other tracks, with an over-reliance on way-too-polished-sounding synthesizer. The previously unissued track, "Victory," is also not particularly noteworthy, other than for its big Viking-style chanting in the opening.

Mighty riffing, majestic vocals and supreme solos are the order of the day on "Testament of Rock - The Best of Astral Doors," a greatest hits collection that hits harder than most. This is some of the most powerful power metal out there.