Powered Heart

For a band like Rexor, it's not really worth asking what the title of their debut full-length means, since the first answer will be, "It's a heart with power," and then, when you raise your eyebrows in indication that your question isn't answered, someone is bound to shout out, "Powered by metaaaaal!" and if you're at all near their rehearsal space the guitarist will almost certainly break into a blazing solo. I don't mean to say that Rexor are the most clichéd band I've ever come across (the Japanese Hellhound are coming up this week if I get round to them), but you can tell that these guys do things on passion more than schedules and good management. For starters, it has taken 18 years of existence for the group to put out one measly demo and a full-length, which is quite a 'manana, manana' attitude if I ever saw one; next, they released this album independently even though it sounds really quite good (it was also recorded, mixed, and mastered by their guitarist); finally, they are Brazilian and those guys are well known for passion, not that I'm into stereotyping except when it saves me words and makes neat sense in a review.

Anyway, the four Brazilians have come up with a great no-brainer on Powered Heart, chucking down some great tunes in quick time and then getting back out of our faces, in the same way as Sweden's Wolf or Widow (awesome American nobodies that you'll love me for telling you to check out). As with Widow, Rexor has at least a quarter of plain old rock in their heavy metal armoury, evident from the roughened yet lovable pipes of Wash Balboa and the Aerosmith styled ballad 'Seal of My Heart' that misses all the power metal clichés by miles yet settles for older and more reliable ones of its own. However, I'm not excited about Powered Heart because of the ballad, but because these fellas know how to leap out of a comfort zone and into the zone by way of suddenly cranking up the pace and passion, as happened when 'I Scream' erupted into my ears about 10 minutes ago and my eyes almost popped out. Aside from Wander Cunha's status as the only guitarist rather ruining my plural, this album is all about the guitars! He knows how to zip along with the best of them at a true metal lick, while he also seems a dab hand at the rockier end of things, stomping along convincingly with Adrian Fernandes's bass on 'Infinite Road' and 'H.M.F.' (heavy metal forever - like you didn't know), while Gleison Torres keeps things steady on the drums in a fashion that would make Motley Crue proud.

However, as I believe I mentioned, I don't like this because of the Motley Crue moments, but because of the metal passion that comes streaming off 'Evil Knights' like steam off their sweating horses as they gallop across rocky plains shouting slogans like "Fire swords noble fury" and "Ignore the mess / Ignore the curse". Similar exuberance can be witnessed on opener 'Blood Swords', on which Balboa does a rather poor job of pronouncing the title, though to be fair "swords" is a tricky word to get right when you're concentrating on being Brazilian and passionate. Frankly though, the double bass and swooping melodies (Gamma Ray might ask for that one back) make me give a little less than a third of a fuck about the lyrics, especially if the volume is high enough and Cunha is shoving his meaty guitar tone into my ear with a bit of grease from a shimmying solo. In case you haven't figured out, the riffing is immense fun and the limpness of the symbolism makes me smile all the more, especially when a soundbite of a beer can being opened (I'm sure it's a 330ml just from the tone) introduces us to 'Sinners', because that's hilarious if Rexor think that's the most sinful thing they could have sampled in the studio.

Therefore, this is by no means a poor effort, though the reasonable quality is bolstered by the band's winning combination of poor lyrics, passion, and being Brazilian, not to mention a very helpful contribution from the explosive riffing on 'Vegas Locomotive', 'Powered Heart', and 'I Scream'. It's rather uncertain whether these guys are going to record a follow up to Powered Heart, so I recommend getting your ears on the best (and the worst) moments of this if straight ahead heavy metal with a touch of the old stuff sounds good to you. It sounds good to me, and I'm not even Brazilian.