After
reading the hype of this album in the old Rare Ass-catalog I couldn't
help myself when Rainer K offered a g/g copy (yikes!) for an affordable
sum. I had to satisfy my curiosity and who could blame me when looking
at a cover like that. This album has some of the coolest, heaviest artwork
I've ever seen on a rock record, especially the back sleave, which portrays
a set of deadly assault weapons instead of member's pix, complete with
technical data of each member's/gun's technical abilities and specifications.
"Metal" indeed. I'm no specialist when it comes to this sound and I can't
really namedrop any comparisons, but I'd describe them as a late 70's
style Hard Rock band with the occational 70's glam rock twist here and
there to spice things up. After a few spins it's actually a quite good,
diverse Hard Rock record, with some fine crunchy riffs like on opening
rocker "Rompiendo Pistones" and the following early-DANZIG-reminding "Calibre
38", as well as a few catchy choruses on songs like the Alice Cooper-tasting
"Rain Of Ideas", the catchy epic/melodic "Alma" and "Shake That Fat",
with its mesmerizing, oozing aah's. The only time they resemble anything
commonly considered Metal would be on the rather average "Silver Knife".
Don't repeat my mistake of getting your hopes up for the closing song
"Metal" being this Epic Metal Masterpiece á la MANILLA ROAD - it isn't.
The song begins with some strange sound collages of children chanting,
radio soundbites and a heartbeat that continues all the way through this
heavy, almost 8 minutes long psychedelic guitar instrumental, effectively
substituting the drums, but never really going anywhere with the mood
they tried to establish in the first few minutes of the song. So, the
album may be rare as hell, but nothing the average 80's Metal freak should
pulverize his kid sister's piggybank for. I still felt it could be worth
a mention since it turnes up on a few wanlists and they followed up with
a more "traditional" HM LP in the late 80's (see separate
review).
Buy the sleave cheap and frame it. I did.