VICIOUS RUMORS - Razorback Killers
May 5, 2011, 13 years ago
(SPV)
First album in five years for Geoff Thorpe and his San Francisco solid metal troupe finds the band sticking to their grim and resolute metal munch. Gone is journeyman James Rivera from ‘06’s Warball, replaced by Brian Allen, who is yer perfect match if old school American power metal be the game. Ripper Owens is an apt comparative, as Allen growls and howls in equal parts, also recalling Rob Halford in belligerent Painkiller mode. Musically, what you get is middling Metal Church, Anvil and Anthrax up toward Testament, lots of chugging, lots of throwing metal looks, lots of uneasiness from this camp that it ain’t the kind of old school I can take seriously, the original definition of power metal, namely US grade from the mid to late ‘80s, lacking the tongue-in-cheek aspect of Euro power metal or the melody of the NWOBHM. It’s transmission shops to New Jersey strip malls, cinder block construction to throwing boxes around in a warehouse. Heck knows what any of that means; all I know is this sounds like headbanging as work and not play, made all the harder on the ears through clacky bass, too much mids and drums drenched in reverb.
