Released By : The Forge Records
Genre : NWOBHM, Traditional Heavy Metal
Links : http://www.myspace.com/itseliminator
Tracklist:
01. The Warrior…Of The Skies
02. We Rule The Night
03. Outlaws Of The Highway
04. Video Nasty
05. Danger In The Skies
I hear a lot of stuff from the metal landscape these days that is considered as “old-school”, but it’s very rare that something is released that is truly old-school in every which way. This new E.P from U.K band ELMINATOR is here to fill that void and from the artwork, the band logo, the production values and the music side of things this is straight out of 1983 or so during the height of the NWOBHM movement that dominated the heavy metal world at the time.
The whole thing feels a bit like an E.P that has been dub up from some archives and given a release, but these songs and the band itself have only been going around for five or six years. I do have some criticisms though, but I still feel like NWOBHM collectors will dive into this one head first. My main problem here is with the sub-par vocals. It pains me to say it but the vocalist here is still a bit too raw and amateur for me and has a bad habit of singing lower register stuff out of key and actually sounds as though he is struggling a little with the higher pitched sections. The gang back-up vocals don’t do much to help matters either. My other main complaint is one that may well be irrelevant if you like things to sound organic and old-school, but no matter how hard I try I just can’t get into the production on this one. I realize that bands back in the day had this sort of raw and treble based sound, but that was only due to limitations of technology and I’m sure even the old guys would have preferred a touch of the tonal qualities found in modern day production values.
Let’s steer away from the negatives for a moment though, because if there’s one thing these guys have gotten totally right it’s their song writing. These tunes are all excellently written and harken back to the days of IRONMAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, TANK, DIAMOND HEAD, SAXON and any of your other favourite bands from the era. Now this fact is probably good enough to outweigh the negatives if you are into this sort of music. If you can forgive the less than stellar vocals, and don’t mind a raw production then this MCD is certainly a worthy purchase. If ENFORCER can stick it out for a while longer and improve the vocals in these songs I would certainly be excited to see what they could do with a full album and a decent budget.
Written By ZeeZee
Rating : 7/10
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