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Artist: Holy Rage |
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With
the winter well and truly here it time to get a down to some serious
hard rocking to blow away the chills and melt the ice with some high
octane Heavy Metal with Holy Rage. Well if
you haven’t heard of Holy Rage then you must have heart of Al Atkins
the original frontman with Metal Gods Judas Priest, yes before Halford
Atkins fronted the icons of British Steel. If you
caught Al’s solo album 'Demon Deceivers' you’ll know what a
tremendous vocal might Atkins is, this gravel soaked Metal Master
hasn’t lost any of his vigour or might over the years and this new
album just highlights that fact with eleven ball-busting Heavy Metal
anthems. Opening
up the metal might is ‘Just Don’t Run’, from the off it's grinding
no nonsense Heavy Metal with Atkins at the helm, with the twin guitars
courtesy of Chris Johnson and our mate Vince ‘Dodgy’ O’Regan
firing out the big licks, while Steve Mercy pounds out some monster bass
lines, while the rock foundation that is Mick Hales brings it all
together with a powerhouse drum beat. All in all a real kick-ass
opener that will blow away those winter blues. There
is no time for a rest bite as this titanic metal force continues with
the massive ‘Kingdom Of Hell’, another ball buster of a song that
will have the horns saluting from first few chords. I just want to
dust off that air-guitar and throw a few shapes of my own with this one.
Any
album featuring Atkins wouldn’t be complete without that trademark
Priest sound and the double guitar licks and powerhouse backbeat are
right out of the likes of 'Sad Wings Of Destiny' and 'Rocko Rolla', but
with a modern metal edge, and 'Love At War' certainly has all these in
spades. The
double guitars of O’Regan and Johnson just ignite this album and are
showcased perfectly on ‘Wasted Away’, a real grinding metal
explosion that shakes the very foundations and the superb
‘Invincible’, two really heavy pieces of old school metal that
really reinforce Atkins’ metal credentials. One
thing about the classic Priest songs was the epic metal pieces, who can
forget the likes of 'Victim Of Changes', 'Genocide' and 'Diamond and
Rust', the latter is what ‘Poison Dreams’ reminds me of, a
multifaceted piece to-ing and fro-ing between an all-out metal assault
with a more narrative gentle edge, all in all classic Atkins’,
power-driven metal at its best. That
pedal is well and truly put to the metal and shoulder to the grindstone
with the skull thumping ‘Give Them Hell and the grinding
‘Redemption Road’, before axe wielding O’Regan and Johnson
really go to town on the fantastic ‘Anguish’. Things
get really meaty on the bass and drum front with the anthemic tones of
‘Victory’ before the album comes to a close with a mighty bang with
‘JDR Conclusion’. With air-guitar in hand I’m redefining my
youth as an all out Metalhead with this intense one minute three seconds
of pure metal epilogue that rounds off a great true metal album. |
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Tracklisting: 1.
Just Don't Run |
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