Unleash your inner Deep Purple
It’s a belief of MVM that Deep Purple don’t get the credit they deserve.
Whenever conversations get round to the forefathers of metal, the usual names get trotted out. Sabbath, Zeppelin et al and then, if you are really lucky someone might mention Richie Blackmore’s boys.
Possibly Flayed were thinking this over in France too, because they seem like they want to put right this wrong on their second record. Right from the off here they meld the guitar and the organ in a way that few do elsewhere and they do so to brilliant effect.
And just in case you thought the opening title track was a fluke that they couldn’t repeat they up their game for the second song. “No Surrender” kick down your door and proceed to strut it’s funky stuff right in your living room given half the chance. That is to say that it is as confident a piece of work as you’ll hear.
In fact the same goes for the third, “Stanced” and this very clearly is a band that mean business. At this point it might be worth pointing out that the band is only a couple of years old, and in that time they have opened for acts as diverse as Lamb Of God, Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel, and even if the latter can be explained by sharing a label, that still took balls. It also shows a band that absolutely won’t be swayed from its classic rock path by any damn thing.
Just as well, then that they are so good at it, “Novel” adds a swaggering, bluesy swirl, “Unfairly” would absolutely cheerfully be an AC/DC song if it could and “Heat Of The Sun” slams. But it does so on their own terms. The Hammond Organ of Rafinet is never too far away, whatever twists and turns the music may take elsewhere.
The glorious use of Organ – and yes there’s more than a touch of the Jon Lord’s here – elevates “Monster Man” into some wonderful areas. “Too Young For An Old Man” is a catchy classic in waiting for example, and it ends an album with so much to enjoy.
This is a record that anyone with a passing interest in rock n roll of the early 1970s simply needs to check out. People simply don’t write songs like “Up Above” anymore. Unless they are Flayed, that is.
And they probably do a mean version of “Smoke On The Water” too…..
Rating 9/10
