MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (s/t) CD
I once in a while recommend a heavy metal album.... here's one that might be of interest. There are folks who'd never buy a record whose label is called 'heavy metal', and I once felt this way, too, but experience proved me wrong, though I still can't stand 80% of the bands, who are filed under this label, especially in the current times. Well, I still like all the early records from bands like Megadeth, Metal Church, Iron Maiden or Diamond Head (just to pick out four of them), but I never have been a real metal fan. Last year, I found this promo in my mailbox, the debut from MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, hailing from Wilmington, NC. The CD has been released by Ghost Ship, but I guess that's the band's own label. I needed some time to listen to the whole album, because this band embodies all the things I hate and love about heavy metal.
Well, what I don't like about this band depends more on my own musical taste, than on the band's abilities. This four guys are talented and absolutely aware of what they are doing. A lot of razor-sharp riffs are here to find, and their mixture between traditional 80's Heavy Metal and 90's Thrash Metal is surely a feast for everyone who's into this kind of music. But to speak for myself, I can't stand this howling siren-like vocals, though they aren't as high-pitched as we know it from the so-called True Metal genre.
I like this album a lot, when the band comes up with slow themes and paying tribute to the mighty Black Sabbath, as "I Don't Believe" that's like a "hidden" cover-version of the song "Black Sabbath". Next plus it the dirty-sounding production instead of chosing this sort of polished ones with triggered bass drums and shit. Maybe that's one of the reasons why the press info speaks about "they break old boundaries", but I don't really know really they're breaking through. Ok, the tasteful cover-artwork looks more as if MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE are belonging to the psychedelic scene, but that's the only difference to the well-known metal standards. Well, I give every metallic headbanger the advice to check out this gang, and I can imagine that a live-show must be a blast, but I'm really don't know what to think about this album - sorry!
(KK)