Best of albums will always split the fans into two categories; those, who have enough knowledge about the band to totally ignore these kinds of releases and those, who know next to nothing about the band.

For the first segment there is only one previously unreleased song on this album, and it falls nicely in line with everything they've released since 2002, where they debuted with their semi-genre-classic "Of the Son and the Father". The other segment will be blessed with a brilliant selection of what I consider the absolute jewels from their 5 studio album they've released in the past 8 years. I wouldn't change a thing, which is very seldom when dealing with a compilation.

Astral Doors starts and ends with Nils Patrick Johansson and throughout the 13 classic songs he shows why many consider him one of the brightest stars on the Swedish metal vocalist scene. He alone lifts this band up among the ones worthy of every metal fans attention. To any newcomer to the band, this is classic heavy rock solid placed in the 70s hard rock and heavy rock, with a pinch of today’s influences by a very good band, performed at a high technical level and overall a special blend that need not to hide in the shadow of anyone.

But this is still just a retrospect of their past, sort of a transition to the next chapter in the history of Astral Doors. Most likely only for metal fans that for some reason has missed out on them earlier on...