Various Artists
White Metal Warriors: Last Ship Home
Reviewed by Doug Van Pelt
Here's a collection of ten tunes by some of Britain's best (we presume) Christian metal bands. Each of the five bands offer two tracks each. Both Detritus and Seventh Angel present previously unreleased material, which is cool. Three new bands are introduced, which are fairly good. My favorite of the three is Maverick, a melodic hard rock band with an uncanny Y&T influence. The second of the band's two tracks, "You'll Shine", is the better showcase of the band's commercial talent. Lazarus goes for a classic British heavy metal sound a la Saxon. Stairway is the third band, a very heavy outfit that takes a basic thud metal approach to songwriting. The standout cut is probably "Subliminal Division" by Detritus, which has a monster intro and is very mosh inducing. The vocals in "Taste The Blood", the second offering from Detritus, sound a lot like Chuck Billy of Testament singing. Seventh Angel's cut on side two, "Seven Angels", has some good ideas, but the guitars are too buried in the mix. It's a very long tune, with a good rhythm crunch. Overall, this is predominantly a mosher's tape, with a couple commercial-yet-heavy tunes for variety. Not bad, but nothing that will shake or revolutionize music as we know it.