Hard Times Hanging At The End Of The World

Metal. More specifically, speed metal, of the late 70s/early 80s variety, in the same vein as Metallica's "Kill Em All" (which is one of the awesomest albums ever imho). At the same time though, it manages to mix in some more doomy or sludge elements, which makes it sound quite modern and creative. These guys are serious guitar heroes, and there's tons of twin guitar attack pieces in here. Nice drumming too. Weird vocals, sort of screamed, but not bad sounding... Good stuff! For fans of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Helloween, Exodus.

Picks: 2, 5, 6 *** FCCs: 3

1. Weird Hawkwind-style electronic soundscape intro. Then the song crashes in after half a minute... It's immediately apparent what these guys are all about: heavy freaking metal! Awesome...
**2. Straight to the point, start-stop guitar chugging, leads into twin guitar mayhem. Intense drumming. Nice!
3. FCC: fucking, sung multiple times. Guitar noodling builds into this crisp ascending riff, then in kick drums and bass. Good stuff.
4. Acoustic interlude, spanish guitar sound. The metalheads relaxing. Quite pretty actually, if slightly cheesy.
*5. ...And the acoustic interlude leads straight into headbanger's ball. Again intense twin guitar attack, galloping riffs and all. Crazy guitar solo
*6. Syncopated, almost hesitant intro, builds up to a pretty sweet thrash piece. Guitars in the last 2 minutes are KILLER