Kev Rowland When Metal Church entered the studio to record their eleventh album the line-up was the same it had been for some years, except that frontman Ronny Munroe had decided to step down after ten years in the band. Kurdt Vanderhoof wasn’t sure if wanted to continue with Metal Church at this point, but then wondered if Mike Howe may be interested in picking up where he had left off twenty years before. Mike was in the band from 1988 to 1995, singing on three albums, and once he had heard the material he was back. What is unusual, is that apart from singing with Heretic prior to joining Metal Church, Howe has rarely recorded or performed, so he was coming back into the pit some twenty years on from leaving it, yet it sounds as if he has been performing with the band for years.

Howe has one of the strongest and finest voices in metal, while Vanderhoof has been providing metallic riffs in this band for nearly forty years (apparently a young Lars Ulrich even auditioned at one point), and having Howe back has given him a new sense of purpose and energised everyone involved. This is classic metal, nothing fancy or genre breaking here, just guys playing good old fashioned heavy metal with strong hooks, riffs, load of leather and denim. I can smell the sweat coming out of the speakers, as this is the music I grew up, horribly hot halls with way too many people and far too much testosterone, speakers blasting and an audience wanting to be blown away by what was happening on stage and a band surrounded by Marshalls prepared to do just that. Music like this is a comfort blanket, nothing weird is going to happen, it is metal nothing more and nothing less. Yes, there are some acoustic guitars here and there, but don’t worry, they are just to provide emphasis to the electric ones, which are the ones that really matter. Superb.

adg211288 Following the exit of singer Ronny Munroe in 2014 after four albums, the long but on/off running heavy/power/thrash metallers Metal Church once again found themselves without a frontman. In a move that has shades of their earlier reunion with the late David Wayne, Metal Church have been able to bring back singer Mike Howe to the band. Howe had been out of Metal Church since 1994 and previously recorded three albums with the group, the last being Hanging in the Balance (1993), which up until this point seems to also be the last Howe was heard of in the metal scene at all. XI (2016) is the ninth Metal Church album. Aside from Howe it features the same line-up as previous album, Generation Nothing (2013).

It's clear right from the opener Reset that Mike Howe has lost nothing as a vocalist in the last twenty odd years. I have to confess that the most recent Metal Church album I've heard prior to XI was A Light in the Dark (2006) so I'm unable to compare how XI stands up to either This Present Wasteland (2008) or Generation Nothing, but it seems to me that Howe's return has breathed new life into this classic band. It's not a return to the USPM of their early days but rather a traditional heavy metal record with some thrash metal influences (such as the track Needle & Suture) which I'd say is typical of later Metal Church. Most importantly it's one hell of an album. The first three tracks, Reset, Killing Your Time and No Tomorrow are all particularly excellent. Not every song packs the same punch, but there aren't any fillers either, just a classic band continuing to give it their all and be successful at it.

The only real downside as I hear it is that XI doesn't have as much of a lasting impact as it initially had me believing. It's be a real monster of an album if all the tracks were on the level as the first three, but it's lacking that something that made Metal Church's early work so special. Even so XI is still a very satisfactory release from them and with the reunion with Howe now firmly established I expect there'll be more great things to come from Metal Church.