The Voice of the Cult

The David Chastain/Leather Leone “love affair” has been a fluctuating, but by all means a fascinating one. It produced four fairly strong albums in the 80’s before the metal queen decided that she would keep a low profile during the transformational 90’s, leaving the guitar wizard to fight alone (well, not exactly) and make his way through the groovy/grungy/alternative madness. Then she came back once all this hysteria was over, and the old school was back in full bloom. She was by all means missed as the album reviewed here shows only too well.

This was the first album I got from this collaboration, and I still find it the best. Call it nostalgia, call it sentimentality, but it has a special meaning for me as its heroic unblemished swagger brings me back to those youthful days every time I listen to it. It’s the best representation of the band’s edgy proto-thrash flavoured power metal as it was also the end of an era since the follow-up “For Those Who Dare” took a more melodic, mainstream direction. The guys (and a girl) had come with all the guns blazing here fully aware that whatever they created this time had to count provided that this was a tremendous year for metal. And count it does first with the infectious rousing title-track, a power/speed metal hymn second to none with both Chastain and Leather in top form the former sounding both restrained and flashy in a very characteristic, inimitable way. “Live Hard” is a speed metal shredder galloping into the distance until it encounters “Chains of Love”, a heavy stomper with a nearly doom metal aura.

“Share Yourself with Me” is back on the horses with aggressive thrashy gallops filling in the aether and Leather sounding more pissed and venomous. Creepy doomy riffs start sneaking in on “Fortune Teller”, a heavy seismic pounder with dazzling leads (Chastain leaves his hands here), a great atmospheric interlude, and an amazing lead-driven epitaph. “Child of Evermore” is a dramatic shredder its steady mid-tempo stride broken by a speedy chorus-carrying passage; and “Soldiers of the Flame” is the seeming radio hit which is still hard-hitting enough not betraying the sinister nature of the album despite its marginally friendlier rhythm-section. “Evil for Evil” commences with a superb virtuoso stroke provided by Chastain, but after that the band reach brutal thrashy dimensions Leather shouting her lungs out in a fairly convincing fashion including on the calmer section served a few times throughout. “Take Me Home” is a smattering power metal hymn, a no-brainer of pure battle-like atmosphere with the great chorus and a bewitching balladic ending with Leather proving why she’s one of the five greatest female vocalists in the annals of metal; a more than fitting finale to this seminal opus.

US power metal reached its culmination in 1988 with the works of Helstar (“Distant Thunder”), Liege Lord (“Master’s Control”), Attacker (“Second Coming”), Manowar (“Kings of Metal”), and the album reviewed here. It’s a pity that Omen, one of the fathers of the movement, had to flop so deplorably with the mild “Escape to Nowhere”, but the other practitioners were all up and running on full-throttle including those who had ventured into thrash (Manilla Road, Laaz Rockit). The genre simply had nowhere to go after that, I guess Omen were trying to summarize the situation with the title of the mentioned album; thrash and death metal had occupied every other niche leaving very little room for more battle hymns and epic exuberance if any at all. It came as no surprise that some of Chastain’s colleagues from Shrapnel (Toby Knapp, Tony Fredianelli, Marty Friedman) moved towards the thrash metal spectre in the 90’s…

Chastain had all the right skills to do the same, but the man remained faithful to his chosen field although the following “For Those Who Dare” was again more melodic with a more mainstream sound. Some blame Leather for that since she had already tested the market with a solo effort (Shockwave”) a year earlier which was more accessible, more commercialized heavy/power metal; and that she had contaminated her main band’s delivery on the next instalment just before her departure. Well, that’s debatable as Chastain was already looking into the 90’s with their new musical demands, and after some time spent thinking over these new possibilities he recruited another female throat (Kate French) for the creation of two decent modern power metal recordings which didn’t hide their fascination with the dominant groovy trends. A 7-year break followed before the band returned with “In an Outrage” which welcomed the resurrected old school canons and also saw French performing for the last time.

Nearly a decade passed from that latter opus’ release before Chastain and Leather reunited; “Old love gathers no rust”, as they say, and the last two partnerships almost brought the sound back to the band’s heydays even touching the greatness on this indomitable “voice of the cult” here on the more inspired moments. It’s great to know that the King and the Queen are together again, pairing so well and ready to lay waste to any fraction that opposes to their ancient “cult”.