I really, really, really want to give this album a perfect ten. But that’s only because of the truly brilliant album and track titles, it’s like a Dungeon and Dragons rule book written by a madman on PCP. Alas, from a musical perspective the album does not deserve a perfect ten.

Never the less, it’s not as if the titles and music are at opposite ends of the brilliance scale, this is indeed a very solid piece of work. Combining traditional heavy metal sounds with some sludge, and even some bears some resemblance to 3 Inches of Blood’s brand of heavy power metal. But despite is delicious sounding combination of genres; the album doesn’t suck you into its audio universe of epic wars and fantasy beasts straight away. After two or three listens the album does become rather addictive.

One of the highlights of this album is the variance in vocals. Not being an expert on vocal terms or having a musician’s dictionary handy I’ll just list some bands who sound like they contribute to this album’s vocal style: Mastodon, 3 Inches of Blood, Carcass and Soilent Green. The always changing vocals really do keep you intrigued, but for some the lyrical content will be enough to justify repeat listens.
Blind Guardian with balls seems the best way to describe the lyrics, but rather than hearing epic power ballads of Tolkien’s good guys overcoming evil, Lair of the Minotaur treat the ears to violent onslaughts and tales of vicious mythical beasts obliterating all in sight. This album really does create a lot of energy and brutality, creating a lot of hope and high expectations for live shows. Hopefully they will be late additions to the summer festival circuit.

Rejoice! It can finally be deemed manly to listen to songs of giants and goblins.