The Fever

Midnite Hellion sound like they're straight out of the 80s, playing heavy metal that shows an edge of US power metal and speed metal. Despite being formed and recording this demo in 2011, the production and music both hail back a few decades quite convincingly, avoiding many pitfalls of retro bands. They're a young band that shows a lot of potential, with great interplay between the guitars, bass, and drums. The songwriting is strong - they know what to do as a band, not only as individuals.

The demo is a little bit rough, certainly not polished. The guitars have a sound reminiscent of Judas Priest's live recordings of the early 80s, and they leave room for the bass. The bassist is impressive, and while not being showy, he is steady and helps drive the songs throughout, laying back under the guitar riffs when needed, and fulfilling Steve Harris' legacy on the Maiden cover at the end. The drums aren't fancy, not are they stagnant. Simple fills are fit into the songs perfectly, helping progress the song without having guitar leads and fills at the end of every part. The tones have a practice room vibe, certainly not hi-fi 80s stuff there, but it works out really well and it fits their music bigger than a huge snare sound would. There's nothing to complain about with the instruments for a demo, and it would've been a pretty good demo for the 80s.

The guitar riffing is impressive on all three original songs. It's a mix of the standards like Maiden and Priest, with some strong USPM and speed metal moments. The first two comparisons that come to mind would be Lethal and Heavy Load - there's some serious riffing there, so take that as a high compliment to the band. The bassist knows when to stick with unified riffing, and when to let loose and take the song a bit further. The drums are also in sync with this, sticking to simple, driving beats when the guitars or bass need the focus, complimenting them nicely and picking the right spots to take over for a moment. The songwriting is very strong and the instrumentalists seem to be a dynamic group who can play off of each other nicely.

The vocalist leads the song "1903" with melodic mid-ranged singing, showing some power and attempting to lead a dynamic song that's styled similarly to Lethal's "Programmed". Despite these valiant efforts, the singer can't pull off what he's trying to do, having very shaky intonation and lacking the sheer power to manage what is being attempted. The arrangements and songwriting are strong, but every time the band is led by the singer, it is extremely apparent that he is the weak link. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the cover of Iron Maiden's "Invaders", where he comes up far short on the high notes, and sounds like third-place on karaoke night rather than a guy fronting a talented band.

Fortunately, between the release of this demo and this review, Midnite Hellion parted ways with their vocalist, which is a huge improvement for the band. Cut out the vocalist and the Iron Maiden cover and this would be a much better release, showing that the band isn't all the way there yet, but the pieces they have are solid. I'm impressed not only by the individual instrumentalists, but with how well they interact and put together good heavy metal with a bit of variation, but a complete lack of the overproduction and overtechnicality that plagues many modern bands. The demo production makes them feel like the real deal, not a robotic retro machine.

Midnite Hellion show a huge upside with lots of potential, and the upside is wide open in their search for a new vocalist. This is worth a listen (minus the Maiden cover), and whether they rework this or write new material, their next release is on my radar.