Rare Diamonds Productions – 2025
http://www.doromusic.de

As a way to tide fans over until her next full-length studio album, singer DORO PESCH has released ‘Warriors of the Sea’, a compilation album that marks a celebration of her recent ‘Metal Queen Metal Cruises”, two sold-out events that were so successful that at least one more is planned for 2026.

The album (at least the vinyl version) is split into two sides. The first is the “Warriors” side and has five tracks that are rare studio recordings while the B side or “Cruise” side is five live tracks from DORO’s 2024/2025 tour.

The album is available in various formats including a limited edition clear vinyl that comes filled with Blue Curacao. If you want to hear DORO talk a bit more in-depth about the release and how it came about, you should check out fellow KNAC scribe George Dionne’s recent interview with her. You can find that HERE!

The album’s title track was first put out (at least in official video form) a couple months before the release of the album. At first, it took me a bit to get into the song. The video is pretty cool as it uses staged portions interspersed with actual live performance and then mixed with a pirate ship on the ocean motif as well.

I’ve been a DORO fan since the WARLOCK album ‘Triumph and Agony’, and there is certainly no artist who seems as genuinely enthusiastic in talking about her music and her fans. But like I said, it took me a bit to get into the “Warriors of the Sea” track itself. Maybe at first I wasn’t really into it, but having listened to the song a number of times since then, I like the anthemic nature of the performance and given that it can pretty much be seen as the theme song for those cruises DORO is doing, I found that I liked the song more and more after my underwhelmed first impression. Oh, and can I just say that I love her skull and crossbones mic stand in the video! You can see the video HERE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPiESr7s-Q&list=RDNmPiESr7s-Q

That’s the lead track on the album and so once you finish hearing that track you’ve got four more studio tracks to dig into.
The song “Touch Too Much” is actually an AC/DC cover. But damn, the way DORO does her version, I thought it rocked! It’s not an easy thing to cover AC/DC given how readily identifiable their sound is TO THEM. But I loved the crashing thunder that was brought to bear in the faster portions of the song. While I know AC/DC pretty much never brings anyone on stage with them, I would kill to see Brian Johnson come on stage at a DORO show to do this track as a kind of duet.

The song “Tattooed Angels”, if the visuals in the video are to serve as a guide rail, seems to be an ode to the art and artistry of tattoing. The song itself plays it pretty fast and I dug the lyrical content. Not sure I would ever want to go so far as to get tatted up like some of those in the video but hey, that doesn’t mean I can’t like this uptempo rocker of a track, right?

Taken from the 2024 EP ‘Conqueress Extended’, the song “Horns Up High”, is a kickass anthem that is guaranteed to get any live crowd with fists (and horns) raised in celebration. The song has a thumping rhythmic foundation and with both DORO’s vocals and the strong backing group vocal combining for a near overwhelming vocal presence, even as I was sitting in a chair listening to the song, I wanted to jump up with my own metal horns being thrown high and proud in the air.

As with pretty much every release DORO release, there is a song that is sung in German. And the ‘Warriors of the Sea’ album is no exception. Back in 2017, DORO released ‘Fur Immer’, her first all-German language album. And on that was a short ballad entitled “Seelied”. That’s included here and I gotta be honest, I don’t remember much about the song from that original album release. However, I have always liked the way DORO does her ballads and the ones in German, while I don’t understand what she’s saying (I rarely look up the translations), they do seem to always strike a chord with me. So hearing “Seelied” now as almost a new track for me, I really enjoyed it. It’s just over two-and-a-half minutes long, so it gets in and out quickly but DORO’s impassioned vocal draws you in immediately.

And that’s the whole of the first half of the album. Pretty good stuff that does the task of getting you amped up even while you wait for whatever DORO has coming on her next studio album.

But let’s not forget that we’ve got another half of the album here to talk about. As noted, the last five songs are all live tracks taken from her 2024/2025 tour dates.

The first two live cuts, “Children of the Dawn” and “Fire in the Sky” come from the ‘Conqueress’ album. “Children of the Dawn” has a pretty solid thump to it. It’s tempo isn’t quite full on rocker but it certainly is a step above “mid-tempo” at the same time. It’s a pretty interesting live performance to say the least. At times, the song feels like an anthem to get your blood pumping but at other spots in the song it feels as if it is the themse song to a fantasy novel or movie. As for “Fire in the Sky”, there’s no mistaking the blitzkrieg that DORO and her band unleash right from the get-go on this number. Keyed off the relentless attack of the drumming, the band coming over the top has a fiery six-string delivery from the guitars and DORO’s rapid-fire delivery of the lyrics is a surefire way to get you pumped up. It’s a shot of pure adrenaline!

That same kind of hard driving metallic attack shines through once more with the song “Revenge” (from the 2012 release ‘Raise Your Fist’). I have to say that I love whether on studio versions or live tracks, when DORO and her band just go for broke in terms of how fast they are playing. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to the ‘Raise Your Fist’ album, so hearing this track has lit a fire under me to go back and listen to it once again.

The track “Above the Ashes” goes all the way back to the 2006 album ‘Warrior Soul’. I really loved that album a lot, the song has a ballad-like start in the first verse of the song. But as the song kicks into the second verse, the music gets more intense and the power shines through more. It gives it a much deeper and rocking feel. In the live setting you get here, it only becomes that much more powerful. I mean, I know I’m here at home as I listen to the music from the download link I was provided to do the review. But the sound became as near to all-encompassing as you can get without actually being there when the song was played in concert. Also, I think I got a renewed appreciation of the song as well.

The last track on the album is “Raise Your Fist in the Air” and while the song “All We Are” should always be the closing number of any DORO show, this song is certainly a good alternative choice if you had to make one. It’s got a crackling sense of the energetic and as the song title suggests (or even instructs), you can’t help but want to pump your fist in the air in celebration of all things metal and all things DORO!

All the talk about the album beforehand made note that the ‘Warriors of the Sea’ album is only meant to tide DORO fans over until her new album comes out sometime in 2026. It would’ve been easy to throw anything together and put it out, but I liked the effort that was put into this release a lot. It’s not the expected tracks you might find on a lot of DORO compilations. There’s stuff you don’t generally hear a lot and it is all perfectly sequenced. And while I did have to work to fully appreciate the album’s title cut, I got there and find myself looking forward to the next time I listen to that song. Each time I listen that is.

DORO is now and “Fur Immer” my Metal Queen. And ‘Warriors of the Sea’ is a shining example of why that remains a cast in stone fact.

4.5 Out Of 5.0