Time Signature Stronger than before...

Style: traditional heavy metal / hard rock / doom metal

Sunbomb is a project featuring Tracii Guns of L.A. Guns fame and Michael Sweet from Stryper. With such names involved, you might expect their music to be more on the cheesy and glammy side. But that's actually not the case.

Their debut album "Evil and Divine" is actually pretty heavy and also quite diverse stylistically. It probably fits best in the traditional heavy metal bracket, but there are also a number of hard rock elements as well as, perhaps unexpectedly, doom metal and even a tiny bit of power-thrash. While tracks like 'Life', 'No Tomorrows', 'Story of the Blind' and 'They Fought' are straight up heavy metal songs that might as well have been written in the 80s, songs like 'World Gone Wrong', 'Take Me Away' and to some extent 'Stronger Than Before' are straight up doom metal songs clearly inspired by Black Sabbath. And almost out of left field, 'Better End' contains some power-thrash sections.

The production is crisp but not too polished, and there's really nothing to criticize about the musicianship either. Some listeners might find Michael Sweet's belting style a bit much, but I like it. The songwriting is also pretty good but, while there is a lot of emphasis on diversity, a number of the tracks on the album do have a very similar drive. This is not really a detractor in my opinion though.

Overall, this is a very good heavy metal album which almost seamlessly combines hard rock and traditional heavy metal. Personally, though, the doom metal elements are my favorite part. An album that can bring fans of hard rock, doom metal and traditional metal together, Sunbomb's "Evil and Divine" is recommended to fans of old school heavy metal genres who still appreciate a more modern approach.