Massacre/Sound Pollution
Newcomers HELLDORADOS has an info sheet filled with nice words from artists like Ralf Scheepers and Uwe Reitenauer. And they used the same studio in Hannover as SCORPIONS, HELLOWEEN and KREATOR, and the internet campaign is in full bloom. This creates great expectations, of cause. Further on the band is described as playing music with the hit potential of ABBA, the sleaze of GUNS´N´ROSES and the brutality of PANTERA. Now this better be something out of the ordinary!
The opening piano/synth intro is sedated, not wild. The opening spit in “Never Gonna Sop” is followed by a sticky riff, and an ok refrain. The sound is Old School hard rock, nothing like the info says. The sound is actually more in the vicinity of the NWOBHM at times, not öleast in the catchy “You Live, You Learn, You Die” and “Shout Out”, where the English style is slightly augmented by a hair metal refrain. Then there is the ballad “Gone”, the typically Northern England style in “Double Dealer” (suitably enough about the same kind of financial crisis as back in 1979) and the HEAVY PETTIN´ moment “Girls”, which has a solid boogie baseline. But that is as good as it gets. The rest is down to flat refrains in the vein of DOKKEN or very early stages of English heavy metal, which didn´t work out back then either. I´d say go for the NWOBHM gritty refrains and make them boom with hair metal style refrains. Can´t miss…but this time around it´s a mere 3/5.
Track List
In the Beginning
Never Gonna Stop
You Live, You Learn, You Die
Go to Hell
Changes
Shout Out
Hunter
Double Dealer
Gone
Torture Is My Name
Girls
Got Laid
www.massacre-records.com www.myspace.com/helldorados/music
