Three Inches Of Blood
Fire Up The Blades
Roadrunner


Its surprising how many half-decent bands are signing up to Roadrunner these days, and it's relieving to see that talent is starting to prevail over fashion in metal (or a combination of the two, whatever tickles your fancy). Three Inches Of Blood are no doubt part of the new bandwagon crew, unleashing their new album 'Fire Up The Blades': a petite little combination of glam, 70s new-wave-of-British-heavy metal, thrash, metalcore and Swedish death.

Musically, their sound resembles the cock-rock/metalcore elements of Avenged Sevenfold blended with other thrashier influences such as old Megadeth, combined with fast contemporary outfits like Mendeed or new Machine Head. Vocally, the singing alternates between an operatic just-been-kicked-in-the-balls type voice projection not unlike that of Rob Halford from Judas Priest, and raspy screams in a Swedish/Finnish death style, comparative to Alexi Liaho from Children Of Bodom. I would even go as far to say he sounds like Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy... except he's a dude...

Whereas many of the tracks follow a fairly consistent and rigid pattern, as it is sometimes hard to distinguish one from another, Assassins Of The Light and God Of The Cold White Silence are songs that stand out, and amongst all, the highlight track for me is The Hydra's Teeth, a crisp thrash-rock type track with cool melodics and catchy hook riffs.

Unsurprisingly for a band on Roadrunner, the album is fairly over-produced, and if you're anything like me and enjoy the raw quality of older thrash bands, not that I would specifically label these guys thrash, but it could have done the album some justice. A fairly decent effort here - not sensational - but pleasing enough to listen to more than once.

Brad Holland