2007 is not the best year for the bands from the classic heavy metal scene, but an album like Primal Fear’s new one proves that good things also happen around groups like them. If “Seven Seals” already won the audience for the cause of the metal eagles, “New Religion” figures as a proof of the changes undertaken by the band. There is confidence in it now for making new music with the specific face of Primal Fear, which shows that similarities with other big names from the scene are left somewhere far behind. The only song in the new album where the association with Judas Priest is inevitable is the first one, “Sign of Fear”, but afterwards the record continues on a stable path on which Ralf Scheepers and the other musicians walk briskly and confident. A piano surprises in some parts, just to delusion us that the sound is softer, but that’s not the case. The songs in general are slower than on the previous album, but they are varied even if they are filled with classic heavy elements. Tom Naumann is not part of the band anymore, but this did not reflect on the other guys’ work. The era with Nuclear Blast is also over, as if the changes became something normal for Primal Fear. One of the mistakes in “New Religion” is the invitation of Simone Simons from Epica to be a guest vocalist in “Everytime It Rains”. The album would be successful enough without this kind of platitude song, to be honest. It’s great to remember the good old guitar solos and melodic modulation from one tempo to another in such albums. Primal Fear have not created their best record this time, but it’s a CD that can be easily put next to the best in the genre for the year 2007.