After the fine 1991 debut album 'I Hate Therefore I Am', Chicago's Cyclone Temple lost their vocalist Brian Troch, who sounded like a streetwise half-brother of John Bush (Armored Saint, ex-Anthrax). In came Marco Salinas, who was a bit more remote kindred to grungey James Hetfield.

And the music then? Well, it is similar to the debut's US thrash metal with shredding riffage in vein of Metallica and moshing action of Anthrax. The base of the music is thrash metal. There are some catchy elements, usually the choruses, in the songs. Rarely on this EP, the guitarist/songwriter Greg Fulton shows his emblematic melody work. Too rarely, if you ask me. At times, the band enter harcore vibes and groovier trundle, at times they even touch rock territories. The CD bonus track includes some rapping (who the fuck raps and sings on it, I don't know, at least not Ice-fucking-T) mixed with thrashy stuff, so it is restricted territory! To tell the truth, the song itself isn't bad. You can shoot me now.

However, this time around the production is very thin, cutting the balls of the band right away. Damn shame... Only the kick drums, umm... Kick. Well, the drummer John Slattery really keeps up the pace if needed. The guitar sounds feeble, but thankfully the bass, played by Scott Schafer, does at least a bit what a bass should do. Mind you, the instruments are well played, but are very, very unevenly balanced in the mix, making this sound like a quickly cobbled demo. The semi-melodic vocals lack of force, being at times totally powerless, slackening into obscurity. And the backing gang choir is pretty quiet, too. Anyways, the band sound energetic, firing with all they got, and the vocalist is down with the spirit, too.

The most severe building error here is that they didn't manage to bring forth the band's power, thanks to the shitty engineering job in the studio. The vocalist is another fracturing part, even though all the effort and characteristic style of Mr. Salinas. And simply, the music isn't as good as on the debut album. All this material can be found on the band's last album 'My Friend Lonely' (1994), all newly recorded with different vocalist. Might work, sadly I haven't heard it.

Rating: 6- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
02/16/2009 19:16