There is some serious Rob Halford worship going on here… Not only does this album sound uncannily like one of Rob’s solo albums, but the band seem to shop in the same place as him too. Based on that comparison, I’ll have to admit to have only liking one of Rob’s post-Judas Priest albums enough to buy it, and that was ‘Voyeurs’ - the product of the short lived collaboration with John 5 (and produced by Trent Reznor) under the name Two. So immediately you can see where my initial reaction is going with this one.
However it’s not all doom and gloom for Mean Streak - for those who do like a bit of high-octane, post-Priest, Heavy Metal then this is a pretty safe bet, so long as you don’t compare them to their heroes… Though that’s exactly what I shall do, so you don’t have too!
‘Whom The Gods Love Die Young’ is an impressive title for a song and quite suitably fit’s this up-tempo biker anthem, though, despite it’s rousing chorus and big guitar solo, it never really gets out of third gear. ‘Battle Within’ pretty much follows straight in the previous tire tracks - it feels like Manowar if they had confidence issues. ‘Eyes Of A Stranger’ sounds like it has been lifted straight from the depths of a Judas Priest album and perfected on the pub circuit - it has toe tapping appeal but not much substance. ‘The Seventh Sign’ changes tact a bit, and drops the tempo to bring out some of the heaviness out of that ol’ metal beast, and the band really come into their own on this one for the first time on the album. ‘Raise Your Hands’ however, returns to that very familiar formula that you may recognise from tracks 1-3, but given a “Iron Maiden sans Bruce Dickinson” dull edge to it. ‘Rock City’… a nice suitably clichéd title if ever I saw one, and the music? Yep, you guessed it - more of the same. ‘Sin City Lights’, despite the song being ‘Rock City part 2’ it changes direction to create a more complete and original sounding song that for the second time on this album shows what this band is actually able to achieve. ‘Carved in Stone’ is the token “Oh, here comes the power ballad… Oh, no it doesn’t” intro, what you get instead is the most original song on the whole damn album - fast, heavy, confident - everything that every other song on here could have been. The title track ‘Metal Slave’, you’d be fooled for thinking it was an Iron Maiden B-side until the vocals came in, but after you get over the initial disappointment of it not being Bruce, what you get is another decent slice of head-banging Heavy Metal. ‘Sinners and Saints’ as well continues this trend of confident song writing and great performance and raises the question, why are not all the songs on here like these last three?!
To my ear there are five decent tracks on this album and five shoddy ones - unfortunately to get to the good stuff you have to sit for a long time through the shoddy - a statement on life maybe? Maybe not… but if you are a devotee of all NWOBHM without exception, good for you. If you are not, it won’t be too much of a dent in your lifelong musical exploration to make a detour away from this one.
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