SEVENTH CALLING – Epidemic CD
Heaven and Hell Records
Back in January I gave this Minnesota band’s three song CDEP, Prelude to Madness, an ok review. Well here they are with a new full length and I’m about to eat my past words. Musically this release is what we would’ve called back in the 80s “Metal as Fuck Dude”! Way back at a time in the 80s when NWOBHM was waning and Thrash was just about to explode you had a handful of bands who sounded like SEVENTH CALLING. They had all the classic metal melodies, the guitar virtuoso soloing and mean vocals but they also had these crushing dirty riffs. Because the bands didn’t have huge recording budgets it all sounded rough, insane and pretty cool. Let me put it another way. I could envision a slam pit with half the participants wearing METALLICA shirts and the other wearing PRIEST all going nuts to this release. SEVENTH CALLING plays metal.
The overall attitude on Epidemic is angry metal guy. Opener “Test of Time” is pure fist pumping mania. On “Paid in Blood” vocalist & rhythm guitarist Steve Handel sounds like King Diamond after smoking a carton of Marlboros like a harmonica. Last time around my only fault with their CDEP was Handel’s vocals but after listening to this dink half a dozen times he has grown on me. He’s got the angry guy vocals down pat like snarls but he can’t hit that true falsetto as if he was singing Power Metal. Still he’s alot better than yours truly who thought he could do JUDAS PRIEST karaoke drunk. Handel really excels on songs like the title cut and “Ignite the Fire”. You can’t fault a guy who sounds like he’s ready to jump off the stage and bite ya. As with their CDEP the real powerhouse of SEVENTH CALLING is guitarist Alex Ritchey. Last time around I compared him to Michael Schenker but now I think I was aiming too low. His solo work on these nine cuts is at times clean cutting with slight tech shredding and at other times you can imagine dirt flying from the frets. On “Fractured” and “Tyrannical Reign” he really cuts loose showing off every facet of total eighties metal guitar face ripping.
Actually with all of my bravado in tack I can still see myself eating crow that has been ridden over a few times from this band’s touring van as well as this dink. Heaven and Hell Records is like their Pittsburgh label cousins in arms Shadow Kingdom in that modern trends are meaningless and classic sounding metal never gets old. Seriously even though I grew up listening to and seeing those great early bands I still love hearing new ones keeping the faith.
www.heavenandhellreords.com
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