Reviews: Icon Of Sin, Howling Giant, Crummer, Gabe Is A Unit (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

Icon Of Sin - Icon Of Sin (Frontiers Music) 

Despite the title track opening like Whitesnake's Still Of The Night Icon Of Sin, are very much in the traditional NWOBHM vein. Especially Iron Maiden, this is due to vocalist Raphael Mendes, who is something of a YouTube sensation because he sounds EXACTLY like 80's Bruce Dickinson. I mean it's ridiculous how close his vocal style is and if weren't for the few Latin American pronunciations you'd think it was the Air Raid Siren himself, on songs such as Virtual Empire. So it's obvious that the music you would build around this vocal would be as close to Maiden as possible but I also hear a lot of Bruce's solo projects on Road Rage. No matter what you hear, this Brazilian band faithfully pay tribute to the classic sounds of UK metal. 

The rest of the band are all well versed Brazilian musicians with much of the writing coming from Sergio Mazul (Semblant) and Marcelo Gelbcke (Landfall), who go against their normal styles to make Icon Of Sin a faithful recreation of the power of Iron Maiden. Lyrically there's all sorts of fantasy and historical songs here Batman on Clouds Over Gotham, Feudal Japan on The Last Samurai and the pandemic itself on Pandemic Euphoria. The real star here of course is Raphael Mendes but of course this album does veer into shameless pastiche at times, which I normally mark down but blow me down if I didn't feel the same sort of rush I do when I listen to Maiden. Classic heavy metal with a vocal performance that should have Steve Harris on the phone if ever Bruce wants some time off from the mothership. 7/10   

Howling Giant – Alteration (Self Released)

Last heard on this blog on a split with Sergeant Thunderhoof, Nashville psych rockers Howling Giant drop a surprise digital-only instrumental EP. Bored by the pandemic and the lockdown, the band took to Twitch and performed some streaming shows. During these shows they asked fans to give them potential song names and wrote instrumental tracks on the spot to suit them. Merely live jams, the band went back and crafted four of these into the tracks that feature on this EP. 

A novel idea that has turned into another mind-bending record from this Nashville four piece as it once again makes great use of newest member Marshall Bolton’s kaleidoscopic keys and synths. Though it opens with probably the most direct song on the EP, the thrusting Understudy is driven by the insistent bass and drums of Sebastian Baltes and Zach Wheeler, while Tom Polzine’s arpeggios keep the adrenaline level high making for a song that takes a major hit of Rush in its melody. 

At just 20 minutes Alteration is actually pretty long for an EP, Luring Alluring Rings meandering through some stratospheric space rock as Enemy Of My Anemone brings a jazz-meets-trad metal tone, the fluid guitars adding a real hook. Finally the album finishes with Farmer Maggot’s Crop a song that shifts into echoed Echoes-era Floyd with Mike T. Kerr adding some bluegrass guitar. Alteration gives you four instrumental explorations from a band with a wide musical scope. 7/10

Crummer - Deathwards (Pathologically Explicit)

Deathwards is the debut full length from Spanish death metal duo Crummer, Abel Suárez is the growling voice of the project and Gonzalo “Lalo” Glez the musical backing playing guitar, bass and keys (yes folks that means programmed drums). Their music style is straight up death metal, no frills just brutal OSDM with some atmospheric touches to make it similar to bands such as Bolt Thrower and Pestilence. There’s a good mix of primitive grinding groove and pummelling blastbeats, which will excite death metal lovers, a good thing seeing as the entire purpose of this record was to make music for death metal fans by death metal fans. Self-recorded and produced mainly due to Lalo’s day job as a producer and sound technician. Its 37 minutes of death metal paying homage to the big bands in the genre. Not revolutionary but jolly good fun. 6/10

Gabe Is A Unit - Gabe Is A Unit (Self Released)

Any album that pairs a reading of 'The War Song Of Dinas Vawr' by English poet Thomas Love Peacock with fuzzy doomy riffs is going to get your attention. Especially when that rendition is delivered in lilting  'proper' Welsh accent (I say that as a Cardiffian). It's the third song debut EP from the oddly named Pembrokeshire two piece Gabe Is A Unit, comprised by two blokes named Ben, and it's very bloody odd indeed! At four tracks long there's a whole load of madness going on, the band categorize themselves as grunge/doom but that's quite a simplistic overview of what they do with a guitar and a drum set. 

The most song-like track is Stressful Evening which has reverbed surf rock moving into growling sludge rager, starting the album in a quirky style as it shifts into Pissed God (Wibbly Wobbly) an instrumental that is very Wibbly Wobbly in it's sound. Now this brings us to Dinas Vawr which has Wayne John reciting the poem on top of doom rock riffs and leads into I've Had an Absolutely Marvellous Evening Babes a very weird, drunken train of thought set to frizzing electronics, I do hope the protagonist got the menu for dessert wine after all. Certainly an acquired taste Gabe Is A Unit are a strange duo but they manipulate music well. 6/10