Artist: OZ
Title: Burning Leather
Type: Album
Label: AFM Records

This Finnish band are back, ‘Burning Leather’ is their comeback statement that also includes re-recordings of classic tracks ‘Fire in the Brain’ and ‘Turn the Cross Upside Down’. Moving forward into 2011, Oz has managed to generate new songs that are catchy but firmly planted in some classic metal madness. ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’ is a high octane effort, encompassing classic feel and energy of some of the greats and of course, reminiscent of Oz of old. Opener ‘Dominator’ may have you looking for the Primal Scream comparisons; mainly due to the way the vocals are expressed by DeMartini, they have also released this as a single with a video available online.

Stadium rock, often frowned upon, but songs like ‘Enter Stadium’ are really written for such big expanses of space. There is timeless element to songs like this, and Oz manage to arrange a tune that humbles most of the pretenders in this field, it’s simply has a full sound that embraces your ears. The 6 new tracks (of 11 in total) are pretty good, there are in actual fact 5 older songs by Oz re-recorded, the bonus is the benefit of modern production as can be heard on ‘Gambler’, ‘Total Metal’ and ‘Third Warning’. I am not in any way trying to take anything away from Oz mentioned the older songs, the new tracks are really statements of intent and enthusiasm, you only have to take a look at the CD cover to see that, although it is rather close to the concept of Lechery’s recent album cover.

The PR material echoes my thoughts, this is a great mix of old and new, OZ have already announced some European shows next year, so let’s hope they come this way too. This is a really refreshing release and its right at the top of my shopping list when this comes out.

http://www.ozofficial.com

Paul Maddison

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