Artist: Sister Sin  
   Title: True Sound Of The Underground
   Label:
Metal Heaven

My first taste of female fronted metallers Sister Sin was when the band were the support for W.A.S.P. in April 2007 and live they really impressed.  They really got their hooks into me with the release of their album 'Switchblade Serenades', which they released the following year.  So, as you can imagine, I was really looking forward to hearing their new album 'Sound Of The Underground'.

This is a band that have honed their craft and with this new album the band again have gone one step further up the metal ladder to stardom.

The album takes over where 'Switchblade Serenades' left off with ‘Sound Of The Underground’, this is big lick metal with Liv powering through on the vocals, while Jimmy fires out those true metal guitar sounds, with the rhythm section of Benton and Dave hammering out the massive back beat on bass and drums respectively.

The intense old school Heavy Metal continues with anthemic ‘Outrage’, this one has touches of NWOBHM about it, without sounding dated.  This is what impressed me about the band in the live arena, they deliver good melodic metal with Liv showing her true metal credentials and this fact is also clearly highlighted in their studio material too.

The band pound out their metal path with two metal anthems in ‘Better Than Them’ and the riff spewn ‘24/7’, before rampaging through the massive ‘Heading For Hell’ will all guns blazing.  Then it's one of my favourite tracks off the album ‘I Stand Alone’, with Liv showing all the female angst which female fronted metal needs.  It's no good just standing their looking pretty and relying on just your looks for female artists these days, they have to deliver the goods vocally and I truly think Liv has what it takes to be compared to likes of Doro Pesch and Cristina Scabbia.

It's old school all the way with the fantastic ‘Built To Last’ and the excellent ‘The Devil I Know’, two big lick filled metal tracks that will have the metal hordes digging out the air guitars for sure.

The band aren’t afraid to push the genre, they don’t want to be labeled under just the Heavy Metal flag, they have melody rich metal in their veins as the likes of ‘Time ‘s Aren’t A-Changing’ and the outstanding ‘Nailbiter’.

The album closes as it started with some full on metal, this time it's ‘Beat ‘Em Down’, again the guitars of Jimmy dominate the track as he piles out the licks like two guitarists, while Dave pounds out a monster drum beat, but the icing on the cake is without a doubt Liv who punches out another superb vocal on a track dedicated to Swedish boxing champion Ingemar Johansson.

As I said before this band are destined for greatness in the metal world, they have it all, a great guitar player, a massive rhythm section and of course a superb vocalist.  I for one can't wait to see them live once more, three years is far too long a gap.  Let's hope they can either headline a small tour or get a support slot because these guys (and girl) are damn good.

Tracklisting:

01. Sound of the Underground
02. Outrage
03. Better Than Them
04. 24/7
05. Heading for Hell
06. I Stand Alone
07. Built to Last
08. The Devil I Know
09. Times Aren't A-changing
10. Nailbiter
11. Beat 'em Down

                  

 

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