Time Signature Metal woman...

Genre: traditional metal / speed metal

"Long Live Heavy Metal" is a very appropriate title, indeed; this is an all out hävy metöl album that captures all good things about the metal of the 80s.

With a deliberately retrospective approach, which indeed pervades all things 3 Inches of Blood, the Canadian metallers deliver the goods in the form of 12 metal-as-fuck. For instance, "Metal Woman" is comparable to early Running Wild and Judas Priest, while "Leave it on the Ice" and "My Sword Will Not Sleep" are all-out speed metal songs, and "Die for Gold (Upon the Boiling Sea IV)" is more of an old school thrasher akin to early Exodus. A song like "Leather Lord" sounds - perhaps unsurprisingly - very Painkiller-inspired (could it even a song about Rob Halford himself?). Featuring galloping guitars, noodling guitar harmony figures, ripping riffage and pounding drums, the tracks on the album are, to make a long story short, pretty much the epitome of high quality retro metal. "Man of Fortune", which, for my money, is probably the best track on the album, really summarizes the whole album pretty well, even adding a Manowar-esque sense of epicness in the bridge and also offers an epic power metal-style chorus.

One of the main attractions is Cam Pipes' vocals. His screaming and screechy singing style is as always an acquired taste, but if you dig Rob Halford's style on "Painkiller", then should Cam Pipes should click right away - I, for one, loves his voice.

If you like good old fashioned heavy metal music with all the bells and whistles - including texts about swords, sorcery, epic battles, and terrors of the seven seas terror - then you should not hesitate to purchase 3 Inches of Blood's "Long Live Heavy Metal".