A fantastic all-star musical collective featuring Alex Skolnick, Dave Ellefson, Mike Portnoy, founder Mark Menghi and a generous number of renowned guest vocalists, cannot certainly go unnoticed. Even if in the past many supergroups full of talented musicians didn’t leave a mark on this world, Metal Allegiance’s self-titled debut album deserves a thorough listening.
“Let Darkness Fall”, featuring Troy Sanders from Mastodon, starts with straight heavy guitar riffs but it truly holds a dark side rather palpable in the chorus style and instrumental breakdown. When the rhythm slows down, a smoothly languid guitar solo and flamenco style acoustic guitars create a sharp style change that surprisingly never clashes with the song’s main metal theme.
“Dying Song” features beloved icon Phil Anselmo who delivers a sincerely passionate raspy performance. This song has a quite melodic core filled with melancholic arpeggios that evoke a solemn gloomy atmosphere. Portnoy’s impeccable drumming and fierce lead guitars swiftly & intensely build a faster classic thrash metal vibe.
“Can’t Kill The Devil” featuring legendary Testament’s frontman Chuck Billy has the expected thrash old school catchiness that triggers immediate headbanging. Besides the energetic vocal performance, the guitar solos, also featuring Phil Demmel & Andreas Kisser, deliver a feverish dose of vibrant techniques that increase the powerful groovy core.
Devoted prog fans will be more than pleased listening to “Triangulum (I. Creation II. Evolution III. Destruction)”. This song is a triumphant instrumental orgasm where Skolnick truly performs all kinds of wonders on guitar going full blown virtuoso borderline neoclassical style. The whole song is simply outstanding featuring a classic metal oriented beginning with polished mellow lead guitar that smoothly evolves into gracefully dynamic tempo changes. As the rhythm gains speed in recognizable Portnoy’s style, a series of painfully technical, almost avant-garde, guitar solos (featuring additional lead guitarists: Misha Mansoor, Ben Weinman, Charlie Benante, Phil Demmel, Matthew K. Heafy & Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal) bring the listeners into a reckless sound vortex.
“Pledge Of Allegiance”, featuring Mark Osegueda from Death Angel, feels like an exciting anthem with an everlasting metallic groove that will immediately attract the listeners. While Osegueda delivers his signature powerful screams, lead guitars work relentlessly to create inspiring music evolutions to make everything more appealing than your classic metal tune.
With an intriguing variety of styles and the obvious high level musicianship, Metal Allegiance’s debut album is a delightfully entertaining piece of music.
