Click Here for Martin's HardRadio HardReviews Archives
Fresh Metal
Brand New Sin - Recipe For Disaster
(Century Media)
It's almost comical how much everybody loves these guys, but dammit, it's a bloody joy being sucked into Brand New Sin's swaggering, looming large alcohol metal sound. With their inspiring self-titled debut, this Syracuse act soon hit the tour circuit blasting out their beery power groove metal to all sorts of crowds (usually more extreme than their sound should conceivably support), but it worked because hey... at the core, once work is over for the week, people just wanna rock. Now moved up to Century Media, these guys could seriously stomp right on into the NWOUSHM snakepit, with a sound entirely different to its venomous hiss. And what of that sound? Well, it's pretty easy to articulate: this reeks of Down crossed with your best battered memories of groovy COC served shots by Zakk, vocalist Phil Altier crooning like a redneck Anselmo, sounding damn near Molly Hatchet on the acoustic Running Alone. Lead single Black And Blue has got the riff of the year though, and opener Arrived definitely roars of a band that has done just that. Paced well for potential mass appeal, Recipe For Disaster offers a myriad of speeds, tones and dynamics (there's more than a bog of swampy southern here), not to mention emotions from menacing to almost hair-trigger metal happy - Dead Man Walking bearhugs the latter, also offering a vocal/chug that recalls the long-lost post-AC/DC artistry of Angel City. The opening butt-shaked intro to The Loner says it all... "Hell yeah!"
Rating 9
Deadly Sin - Sunborn
(Spiritual Beast/Nightmare)
Trials and tribulations have caused this seven-year-struggling German act to go through a plethora of lineup hassles and demo releases to wind up in the here and now with a punchy, professional, powerful album that eschews power and prog metal clichˇs while remaining traditional and exquisitely clean. The end result is a slamming, earthy record of Nevermore or Eidolon proportions blessed with a gorgeous drum sound and a multi-dimensional, sonorous, tuneful singer in Russ Thompson. There's a strong American metal element as well, perhaps evoking images of Meliah Rage, Metal Church or Vicious Rumors but then proggy melodies and mood shifts enter from stage left, amalgamating in a band that, through design or accident, drops within the foreign-ness one would expect from German acts performing power/prog (Disillusion fits this latter descriptive as well). It's a potent and sly mix of styles, Deadly Sin ending up with inspired grooves, through what is a measured, miserly visitation upon the elements above, the dominating trunk of the tree being trad.
Rating 8