Tides of War
Apple's English head of industrial design, Jonathan Ive, the man behind the looks of the iPod, iPhone and iPad recently said, "most of our competitors are [interested] in doing something different, or want to appear new - I think those are completely the wrong goals, a product has to be genuinely better." 3 Inches of Blood have a similar approach on to making records and new album Long Live Heavy Metal is no different. They aren't doing something new, something that hasn't done before they just aim to get better on each record and be the best goddamn heavy metal band they can be.
Fifth album Long Live Heavy Metal mines the same sounds as 3 Inches of Blood always have - the gallop of Maiden and the twin guitars of any number of NWOBHM bands courtesy of Justin Hagberg and Shane Clark topped off with singer Cam Pipes' Rob Halford aping rasp. First track Metal Woman slowly fades in with a rumbling bassline before stomping and slashing through 5 minutes of sweat drenched riffs and wailing about a particularly tough and desirable woman "Metal Woman! Ready to attack! Are you ready?". It's fucking great. The pace doesn't let up on blood soaked My Sword Will Not Sleep and speed obsessed Leather Lord.
The band do take a deserved breather and set down their swords for the melodic acoustic guitar and flute led instrumental Chief and the Blade before re-entering the battlefield with a fist pumping epic of Maiden proportions: Dark Messenger: "there's nothing you can do to stop this mighty force!" and the dragon slaying of Look Out. The quintet roar all the way until the folky and triumphant closer One for the Ditch traversing Rainbow territory along the way on the martial beat augmented 4000 Torches and throwing in some thrash on Leave It On The Ice. Throughout producer and engineer Terry "Sho" Murray serves up a wall of guitars and thundering drums allowing Pipes' vocals to fly above the melee.
Long Live Heavy Metal does exactly what it says on the tin. There's no hipster posturing, ironic distance or fair-weather trend hopping here rather its all balls to the wall metal and there's no shame in sticking to your guns, playing to the crowd and perfecting your craft. Mission accomplished gents - time to raise a tankard to these Canadian defenders of the faith.