Artist: Sanction X
Title: The Last Day
Type: Album
Label: Metal Heaven
Occasionally I wonder if there should be an upper age limit for new bands. I mean, if you’ve not risen to the vertiginous heights of say, Guns ’n’ Roses (perhaps that isn’t the best example, but you get my point) by the time you hit the big four-zero any man, or woman, with an ounce of sense would see it as time to hang up their guitar strap and settle down accepting whatever career path they are currently treading, perhaps jamming with the boys in the garage of whichever band member’s wife will allow such ungodly racket once a month. Look at the picture on the rear of this CD and you’ll notice these lads are no spring chickens but the more discerning hard rockers amongst you may also be aware that with age, in this case, also comes experience and the members here may be identifiable from such outfits as Infinity’s Call, Evidence One and Talon.
Well my intention here certainly isn’t to offend anyone who happens to fall into the above category, but merely what I’m trying to get at in a roundabout kinda way is that while your average metalhead who lives for thrash, death, black, doom and other kinds of metal towards the extreme end is unlikely to get an aural stiffy listening to this, there is definitely a market out there that will find some appeal in their sound. You can expect to hear plenty of hard rocking riffs on these eleven tracks that will have you wanting to crank it up to 11, whip out the old air guitar and get as many of those heavy metal shapes in as your kids will allow before they decide you’re embarrassing them way too much. ‘Reason Why We Were Born’ has a particular mean sounding riff that comes at you as part of a real heavy wall of sound while ‘Eternal Light’ has a rhythm that kind of puts me in the mind of Dream Evil’s ‘Book of Heavy Metal.’
None of this is really going to please the speed freaks out there and mostly this plods along at a steady mid-pace. ‘The Calling’ is a particularly memorable track that has the kind of melody and chorus you just can’t help but sing along to no matter how hard you try to resist. There’s a stadium-sized swagger to ‘Alone Again’ which has that kind of big rock ballad get-your-lighters-out vibe a la Whitesnake’s big number of a similar name (you can guess the one I mean). Vocally, Ebby Paduch is no Ronnie James Dio, though he certainly wants to be and actually doesn’t do a bad job. There’s plenty of power and a nice grittiness to his delivery that suits the music rather well. All in all, this isn’t going to set the end of year polls alight, but if you’re in the mood for a good bit of adult oriented rock give this a try.
http://www.sanction-x.com
http://www.metalheaven.net
Luci Herbert
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