And it’s probably a coincidence, but releasing this in the Easter weekend does justify to spend your time on at least one “Church”. If that doesn’t make a great traditional Heavy Metal record, I don’t know what does. If it’s Howe’s return or a lucky combination of circumstances that drove Vanderhoof to writing his best material in years remains to be seen, but it’s a fact that ‘XI’ is a thoroughly enjoyable album full of memorable riffs, hooky songwriting and amazing vocals. Fans of faster material can’t go wrong with ‘Needle And Suture’ or closing track ‘Suffer Fools’. ‘Sky Falls In’ sounds like it would turn into a Bluesy Rock shuffle, but instead, becomes a powerful midtempo stomper. But it’s also the riff work courtesy of Vanderhoof and Rick Van Zant that really shine in songs like the dark and progressive ‘It Waits’ and ‘Shadow’, which sounds like a cross between ‘Fake Healer’ and Black Sabbath’s ‘Heaven And Hell’. Of course, with a singer like Howe, you’ll want to give him the space and slower tempos tend to help that. ‘XI’ really surprises when the band experiments with slower tempos. Especially those with highly memorable guitar riffs, like opening track ‘Reset’ or the amazing contemporary USPM of ‘Soul Eating Machine’. So how does it hold up to the rest of the album? Well, although it is the best song on ‘XI’, there are quite a few songs that come close. Watch the video for Signal Path from Metal Churchs XI for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. It’s a nice epic riff fest in which Mike Howe really plays to his strengths, avoiding the highest regions of his range, but still retaining a lot of it. I was sort of afraid that the band had already hit us with their best shot when ‘No Tomorrow’ surfaced. Producers should take notes.īut in the end, what really counts is the song material. What helps in that regard is the production job everything is well balanced and Jeff Plate’s drum sound is so much more natural than what is the norm for contemporary Metal records and therefore a lot more pleasant to listen to. While ‘XI’ doesn’t entirely escape that problem – a song like ‘Signal Path’ is decent enough, but not as memorable as it should be – it’s definitely the type of album you’ll spin completely instead of skipping to the better tracks. Recent Metal Church albums weren’t bad at all, but lacked the urgency that marked their classic work. Howe’s voice, however, has stood the test of time remarkably well and apparently fired up founding guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof to write his most inspired set of songs since the band’s original reunion, leaning very carefully toward the darker, more progressive tendencies of the earlier Howe-era. E Em C G D A F B A F Am Chords for Metal Church - Signal Path (Lyrics) with song key, BPM, capo transposer, play along with guitar, piano, ukulele & mandolin. Besides, I was quite fond of Ronny Munroe’s natural grit. Moderately, because Howe hadn’t been in any professional band since leaving Metal Church in the mid-nineties and time can be quite merciless on the human voice. When Metal Church announced the return of their best singer Mike Howe, I was moderately positive.
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