FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
With All Hell Breaks Loose, Black Star Riders has created a solid hard rock album and manages to stand as a band in its own right while still doing the Thin Lizzy legacy pretty damn proud. Very highly recommended.
As a die-hard sports fan, I’m often disappointed by the musical selection at sporting events. For every time that a stadium DJ might play “Run to the Hills” or “Hit the Lights,” there are at least a couple hundred renditions of “Don’t Stop Believing,” “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” “Blitzkrieg Bop” and whatever Nickelback’s latest single happens to be at the moment. I can’t remember the last time any of these songs actually fired me up. And when a football player’s idea of a metal band is Free Reign, well, let’s just say that I was starting to believe that good music and the gridiron don’t mix. But that was before I became tuned in to the greatness of Vince Lombarrdi.
Every cover is so irritatingly faithful to the original version it’s aping –right down to sounding overproduced- that it’s painful. But try as they might, none of the covering vocalists here appear to possess an nth of the swagger and soul that Mr. Coverdale conveyed in his prime (even if he did nick it from Robert Plant).