I was surprised about what I heard when I first listened to this album. The surprise was that this band plays some seriously awesome power/heavy metal. The guitar riffs are totally original and interesting to listen to. They feature some tremolo picked riffs along with power chord choruses that really stick to your brain. I was totally impressed with this album. The vocals take a little time to get into though they're a combination of Bruce Dickinson and Dave Mustaine. Quite an odd mixture, but not too annoying. Decent, but not great.

The only beef that I have with this album are the guitar solos. They aren't too well played out. It doesn't seem like they know what they're doing when it comes to this department. Heavy blues based riffs that are distinct and some fast but always memorable. There's a bit of clean tone guitar work in there too. It isn't just distortion coming out of those amplifiers every song. It just makes the album more diverse. But the bulk of the songs there are the distorted guitar.

Everything was mixed well here. You could hear everything pretty well. The vocals aren't drowned out by the guitars and drums. It just flows evenly. This album is about 48 minutes of pure original heavy/power metal. The rhythms are quite complex to play and definitely are the biggest asset to the album. That's what caught my attention the most. All of the songs seriously rip and it's an album that you can listen to repeatedly and not get sick of.

The production sound is solidly based and make this album extraordinary. They must've really invested a lot of money to get this album produced with such quality. Strange that there are no existing reviews of this release here in this database. It's one of those that aren't well available and it could be the reason why they're pretty much an unknown band. But such maturity in the songwriting. That's definitely for sure. They seem to be experienced musicians even though they've only been around since 2007. They just need better solos as I previously mentioned.

If you want an album that is full of guitar riffs that totally dominate, 'An Axe to Grind' is it! These guys deserve praise because of such quality in the songwriting and growth potential in upcoming releases. Definitely a good combination of heavy/power metal. The power metal aspect would apply to the vocals and the heavy metal the guitar riffs. Either way, they need to be more well known. If you've never heard of them, go by my words metal lovers because 'An Axe to Grind' is pure brilliance!

Rating: 8½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
09/02/2012 17:50