voila_la_scorie For a few weeks, before I heard Metallica ("Ride the Lightning") for the first time, I was convinced that Tysondog were the next new super awesome metal band and only I among all my friends had their cassette. Tysondog had some awesome riffs, a great vocalist who had power and clarity in his voice, and their album was produced by Cronos of Venom for gosh sakes. I was in eighth grade and I remember in my art class designing the album cover for their second album. My friends thought I had made up the band until I showed them the cassette. Of course, my design for an imaginary album cover was completely different from the cover to appear two years later on their sophomore release. But anyway, I really liked the band.

A few years later, I decided to order CDs of albums I used to listen to in the eighties that I had long since thought were lost and gone forever, and I was able to bring this release home. Listening to it again, I was reminded of the one thing that I never really liked about it: the drum production. The drums always bothered me. The guitar sound is raw and heavy, the vocals great, and Cronos from Venom even growls "Demon" in the chorus of the song "Demon" for gosh sakes, but the drums sound like, what? I dunno. Eighties drum production where something went wrong. Somebody pushed a switch too far. I guess now song titles like "Dead Meat", "Day of the Butcher" and "Voice from the Grave" sound trite. Thirteen years old and I thought they were pretty cool. Nothing as hilariously offensive as what I read on grind core albums these days but still pretty lame. "Painted Heroes" and "Dog Soldiers" are more Iron Maiden-like titles and perhaps stand up better. "Hammerhead" is a good metal song title too.

I think the music here is still quite good and some songs still enjoyable. But the production needs help. Not just the drums. There's this echo effect on the vocals too. It sounds dated in a bad way.

Good band though and good music. Wish I'd heard the follow up. Hopefully they got the drums better. The double bass drumming sounds like hitting rubber fish with sticks.