It’s so good to see Richie Faulkner outside the confines of Judas Priest and joined by a killer band. We’ve got Ronnie Romero on vocals, Rex Brown on bass, and his JP band mate Scott Travis on drums, at least on the album anyway. This is definitely an old school metal album, and is arguably better than anything JP have put out recently. It’s great to see melody and groove in a modern metal album and this album has it in spades. Add to that, some huge fat riffage and killer solos and my dear friends, we have a one hell of a record.
From the opening crunch of Dead Man Walking until the closing crunch of Downfall Rising, not a groove is wasted. I have so many favourite on here it’s hard to pick. Do Or Die is crushingly wonderful, with pounding beats, killer riffing, solos, and Ronnie sings his ass off. More tea vicar?
The riff and groove of Blind Leading The Blind is superb and you will hum that riff all day long. Richie’s playing on Ghost Of You is just fantastic, it’s a much slower song but so good. If I’m really pushed I will go for Bitter Pill as favourite track because it has an absolutely crushing riff, an evil groove, and the soloing is epic. This is what modern metal is missing.
I do hope this is not just a one off album as this is killer, and it was a close second for my album of last year.
10/10 from The Grooveman.
