loading...Five Were They, Who Rode to Santa Cruz - 90%
Back to the wild cowboy days of the early-90’s, raising the sign of victory twice as well, VV, defeating obstacles and hindrances along the way, also shutting up the naysayers, those who didn’t like this team’s vindictive moniker very much.
Whether they like it or not, it doesn’t really matter cause this demo here is a no-brainer no more no less, vintage old school progressive power/thrash, the really noteworthy show supervised by excellent emotional clean vocals coming as a mix between Tom Mallicoat (Lethal) and Scot Holderby (Mordred). Music-wise this sounds close to Sanctuary, dark potent riffs pouring out of “Never… sorry, “Forevermore”, a great complex opus with more urgent galloping developments energizing the brooding environment, the latter receiving a more technical colouring form the hectic all-instrumental shredder “Beacon of Flame”. The morose tone remains, though, but it has to accept the rushing steel gallops unleashed on “Crunching Machine of Jupiter”, classic US power metal at its finest, and also the heavy elephantine thumps of “Decaying Tower”, a seismic occurrence which comes alive with fine lead guitar histrionics. Fans of Crimson Glory’s epochal “Transcendence” will find their new favourite tune in “Blackened Pages”, a virtuoso-prone piece with a more intense thrashy section, think “Red Sharks” from the mentioned album, the possible highlight on this fairly strong showing.
No place for woe here, the lads completing a really nice ride, putting their town on the metal map with iron determination, also making a reverential nod towards their country’s heritage at a time when it was very uncertain if said genre would survive the numetal massacre. It did, but it wasn’t easy, and such small but invaluable contributions to it like the demo reviewed here went a long way, to keep the fire burning with a Vengeance… the way of the tireless dedicated Vild Vest Vanderer.
