Thursday, October 05, 2017

Ice War-s/t


2017
Shadow Kingdom

This is a one man project and that one guy is Jo Capitalicide (formerly of Iron Dogs, Trioxin 245 and a number of other bands) as he handles vocals and all of the instruments. Ice War have previously done an EP and a few singles so this self-titled release marks the first full length effort from this Canadian band. Right away the opener Battle Zone sets the tone with some driving riffs that are throw back to a few decades ago in the early 80's when metal was raw and that was fine. A few more songs in and the galloping guitar style continues and the tempo changes are handled masterfully. A few songs remind me in parts or of a number of NWOBHM acts including Jaguar, Savage and yes, Dianno-era Iron Maiden. With only eight songs in my mind an album needs to really hit on almost all of them for it to be really good. This album does just that-it nails the heaviness, delivers catchy rhythms and as a whole the album even gets better as it goes along. There isn't a great deal of flash as is the case with a number of current acts who try focus on an older sound. However, it doesn't need that because the material that is here is so strongly crafted that fans on classic style metal are in for a real treat. If there is one problem it's just that the vocals while adequate for the most part there are moments where I wish had a little more range to elevate the songs even more. Hey, Mr. Capitalicide is already handling all of the other duties at a high level so it's hard to be great at everything. Really a powerful outing that has me hoping this one man act dispenses with the singles and gets into another full length effort soon.

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3 Comments:

Blogger non de guerre said...

Mark, you're back! I was beginning to fear you had become a Justin Bieber fan or something.

5:54 PM  
Blogger Metal Mark said...

Nope, still listening to same stuff-lots of classic metal, stoner and doom mainly. I stopped writing here because I just got bored with it. I was still approving comments here, but I did a horror/sci-fi blog for a few years and got bored of that. Recently decided to get back to reviewing music but maybe just one review per week.

5:57 AM  
Blogger Ray Van Horn, Jr. said...

Welcome back, Mark and Andy!

11:15 AM  

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