Ignite

Deezl is a semi-supergroup of sorts, featuring three somewhat well-known journeymen and three more relative unknowns in metal circles. They play an extremely straight-ahead version of metal that comes across as very American in nature despite all the members except vocalist John West hailing from Britain.

I’ve made it no secret on these pages that West is my favorite vocalist, and as a fan of his, I will say his vocals are a joy to hear on Deezl’s debut, Ignite. At 52, he still has great power and range, but in the past decade he tends to sound much better on midranged material than stuff that asks him to stay up high for extended durations. The music here falls squarely in the former category, and West gives what might be his best vocal performance since 2005. As usual, his sense of pitch and clarity is excellent, but here he injects a lot of energy and grit into every line he sings.

Almost matching West in quality on this album is a set of guitar solos that consistently elevate these songs. The guitarists clearly have a talent for shredding, but the solos strike a balance between shreddier work and a more bluesy approach, allowing them to consistently serve the songs without necessarily playing it safe.

You’d think a well-produced straight-ahead heavy metal album with great vocals and great solos would be a great album, or at least good. Somehow, though, Ignite just doesn’t, well, ignite.

As the rhythm section generally acquits itself fine and Martin Powell’s keyboards are barely detectable, the blame for this album’s mediocrity really lays with the rhythm guitars. They just never seem to catch onto any kind of reasonable melodic idea, either residing in stagnant palm-muting or directionless heavy chords, all with a thick guitar tone that sticks out in contrast to the reverbed vocals and drums. Not only is the riff work not engaging, it also actively hurts most of these tracks in that it doesn’t seem to leave much room for West’s melodic vocals. On half of these verses, it sounds like the vocals almost came from a different (and better) song altogether, because the vocals and guitars just don’t mesh. Most of these songs seem to be aiming for the sort of rollicking straight-ahead sound of Motörhead, which doesn’t really lend itself to the more melodic approach to vocals West will almost always provide. Still, his edgy delivery here wouldn’t be at odds with such an approach if the riffs had any sort of compelling chord changes in them.

As such, the best song on here by far is the only one where the rhythm guitars take a break, surprising closer “Silence Without End.” It’s a building semi-ballad with a fair helping of clean guitar, a sparkling vocal performance, and a well-constructed guitar solo, and is the one track on here that unequivocally works. Everything before it is in the more Motörhead-oriented mold, and West fans might note some similarities to the Feinstein project he took part in in 2004, though Deezl play faster tracks with less of a NWOBHM influence. Some of the better fast tracks are the careening “Empty Friend,” “Not Dead Yet,” which has a half-decent riff, solid chorus hook, and tapping solo, and “No More Apologies,” with its harmonized chorus. “The Hammer and the Anvil” comes closest to Motörhead and features a bass solo, and “Motorcycle Royalty” has some good verses.

Given that this is aiming to be one of the most primitive and stripped-down forms of metal, the fact that Ignite comes up so short in metal’s most fundamental building block—the riff—is a letdown. It means that the great vocals and solos on this album merely elevate it from nearly unlistenable to okay. The fact that a lot of these tracks actually come close to working is a testament to how good those performances are, really. But this kind of barreling, full-speed-ahead sound just can’t withstand such frequent bouts of dissonance and incoherence, so save for a few hopeful sputters, there isn’t much ignition to be found here.