Ripsaw - An Evening in Chaos...

This feels slightly odd as a No Remorse release and I suspect was mainly put out due to the Manilla Road connections: Mark Shelton produced the '87 tracks, they played together, both from Kansas--but you can't really draw any strong musical connections to MR as with Stygian Shore.  As a purely personal point of interest, I didn't know this had two pre-Psychic Pawn members, although then again, I've owned Decadent Delirium for years and had no clue Micha Kite had any sort of musical career outside of writing for Pit magazine in the mid-'90s until fairly recently (mercifully, Kurt Hubert doesn't seem to have had any musical projects).

The new 2013 material is too modern for my tastes and best avoided if you're here for the old material--it's modern thrash with some okay-ish riffs, some groove metal sections, and some odd riff and lyrical choices that would probably work far better in the context of a death metal band.  Unfortunately, the angry talk-singing vocals only further modernize the band's sound.   "The Tempest" even has some laughable spoken narration babbling about Luciferian precepts or some nonsense.  I'm here for violence, bitches, and brain damage, not awkward attempts to be deep or justify hedonism.

Hearing the newer stuff made me slightly apprehensive about the '87 material, but as usual, '80S METAL HARDLY EVER DISAPPOINTS.  It's competent thrash leaning towards the more aggressive side of the west coast sound--think a mix of the Death Angel and Dark Angel debuts (ignoring the speed metal elements of the latter), maybe with some early Sacred Reich in there too.  The vocals remind me of a less exaggeratedly snarly Mustaine crossed with Don Doty, although on "Brain Damage" I was pleasantly reminded of Piledriver's vocals.  These tracks represent a band of the time playing their style well rather than some sort of incredible unearthed recording.  But keeping that in mind, I have nothing bad to say about the tracks beyond them being somewhat generic.

The DVD is better than I expected--although presented as a "documentary," it's just then-recent band member interviews and recollections cut with vintage video footage.  My only gripe is that there's obviously a decent amount of old video, but here it's only presented in relatively short, overdubbed bits.  Perhaps it's just me, but I'd much rather see spotty video of an '80s thrash gig than find out who in the band really likes Tabasco sauce.  Bonus points for the unexpected appearance of a Bathory t-shirt, though!

HB - Frozen Inside & White Wizzard - Over the Top

Apparently the band name stands for Holy Bible.  Huh.

Christian attempt to get a piece of that female-fronted symphonic metal pie popularized by Nightwish, Within Temptation, etc.  Can't say I have particular interest in the style, secular or otherwise, so aside from the lyrics, to me they seem quite interchangeable with any other band in the genre.  Vengeance Rising this is not.  I'm genuinely curious if anyone picks this as a full-on substitute for other symphonic metal rather than as an additional band in the genre, like someone choosing HB since After Forever is too blasphemous for them.  Don't have anything more to say about this that can't be readily observed on the cover (the drummer has a mohawk, the singer didn't receive any blessings in the breast department, etc.).  I do find it amusing the cover makes it look like each band member is representing a different kind of Hot Topic patron (ala Dethklok).  

Not as immediately likable as some of the material on the High Speed GTO EP-- here they're better at playing reasonably entertaining metal than at playing great metal.  The vocals are surprisingly strong and while there are some cool parts, the general songwriting seems weak for its influences.  I feel this is honestly a bit too overground, as the album largely chases after early-mid '80s Priest at the peak of their commercial popularity--along with "Iron Goddess of Vengeance" (their attempt at "Powerslave") and the usual traditional metal tropes--but severely lacks the catchiness and true wow factor associated with those sounds.  They do what they can, I suppose, but rather than hear a band fall short of such lofty goals, I'd just as soon prefer a band doing rougher USPM or 3rd string NWOBHM worship exceedingly well.  Middling as a retro-HM release.  

On to the covers, the real reason I got this:

• "Gates of Gehenna" - Decent musically, but the vocals have none of  the sinister authority of the original EP/album versions, and the exaggerated highs are lame.  DAVID POTTER WE MISS YOU.
• "Heading Out to the Highway" - On a technical level, it's a solid cover, and obviously stronger than their original material.  However, it falls into a perilous who-gives-a-fuck area--it's not impeccable enough where I can marvel how well they emulate JP, but it's so by-the-numbers there's no good reason to listen to it over the original.

Under the disc tray, we have a close up of the girl from the cover--surprise, it's a a rendering of La Toya Jackson during her SuicideGirls years!