Greece's Witchcurse present their debut studio album 'Heavy Metal Poison', which gladly does not mean that they play a mixture of heavy metal and the glam rock band Poison in their sound. No, the band are about true heavy metal!

Their titular song, opening the album, begins with horror organs, and I was sure that there will be a King Diamond-ish shriek soon, but no... The song continues with very Iron Maiden-esque slow opening. When the song hits the next gear, it becomes clear that NWOBHM is a big influence to the band. While the song is kind of cool, the problems are so damned clear to be heard.

The vocals are the worst aspect about the album. The pretty high-pitched singer ceaselessly sounds like he misses notes he so badly tries to hit. It makes the vocals sound very bouncy. He has no real strength in his voice, as he screams just short bits. He just shouts a note (or round about) and then tries to sing after it; no chance! Also, his pronunciation is horrible, which makes it sound too much like a parody. "Hard rocking" sounds like "half monkey" here, for example. The vocalist also plays guitar, and I think he should do stick to that alone, and leave singing to someone who does it better. Speaking about guitars, the bass guitar included, they are the most functioning department here. Only the sound bugs me, but more about it later on. The drumming is mainly okay, but there are rolls that the drummer guy messes up like hell. More practice and new vocalist might do wonders.

The production sounds cheap. It's much worse than on many a late 1970's NWOBHM album. Over 30 years later... The guitars are totally powerless. The bass is there, but still it is pretty inaudible in the mix. The vocals, well, they sound like they were recorded on first take. The drums are also powerless. All in all, the production is totally on low demo level.

Okay, more about the music itself. Just like the tradition suggests, Witchcurse also pay visits to punk rock territory. Of course it is mainly about heavy metal, old style. There surely is nothing new in the music to be heard, it just smells of recycled stuff. 'I Don't Want to Grow up' is an annoying song that sounds like a bad metal version of Twisted Sister's hit 'We're not Gonna Take It' mixed with a children's tune. Just trying to point out, that when there's melody, any kind of melody is not enough. Similar stuff plagues some of the other songs, too. 'Witchcurse' is the band's best song, shortly followed by 'Rock Unite' (?) and 'Drinkers from Hell' (now this title I love!) with its cool twin guitar attack.

There is energy in performance, but about everything else is done in a lame way. Witchcurse sound like a demo-level band at the moment. As I wrote earlier: More practice and new vocalist might do wonders. The band's name is classy, so come on, show what you're really made of next time around!

Rating: 3½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
10/30/2010 21:17