HammerFall announce 8th studio album

Wow, how did I miss this?? Have to disagree with Kingface (sorry dude, I know us Chesterfield
people have to stick together!), I thought Hammerfall were fantastic
at Corp last year (and I'm not even a big Hammerfall fan).

Can't wait to give the new album a listen tomorrow!
 
Even though i'm not really into HF, I was still a bit tempted to go to Gothenburg where HF will be signing albums and sell the special edition really cheap, just for the fun of it. But the price of train ticket there scared me so maybe another time.
 
I'm a huge HammerFall fan, but this just hasn't clicked for me, yet. There are a couple of fantastic "true HammerFall" songs on this, though. But it seems they like many power metal bands (to put them in a box) are changing the style in which they write music, now...
 
Having listened to the album now I can see that 'true HammerFall' sound comes across a little too stagnant and formulaic over anything else. Don't get me wrong there are some goods songs on here but they amount to three or four tops. It's odd they've gone for almost a zombie concept album, going somewhere different yet ending up right back at the same place! Where they have done things differently it's just jarring and out of place (like the ending).