Devil in Disguise

Chalk Pennsylvania-based Kraze up as yet another 80s power/speed band which was unable to muster anything beyond several demos before fizzling. Fast-forwarding over a decade later, now-defunct German label Iron Glory saw fit to compile everything onto a single disc, resulting in this, one of the better slabs of cheap (as in to purchase), unknown 80s metal one can buy. Not essential to anyone but 80s completists, it nonetheless represents an era where metal was often simpler and more exciting – no pretense, no bullshit, just pure 80s metal.

Anyone familiar with the often-revered Auburn Records family of the late 1980s can likely guess what these guys sounded like. The term power metal meant something quite different in 1988, something more akin to this sound. Start with a toned-down thrash base, clean up some of the messiness associated with discs bearing that label, throw in high-pitched air raid siren vocals (but don’t forget the multi-tracked, ballsier choruses), and top it all off with several doses of overt speed, and you’re roughly in the same zip code in which Kraze honed their sound. Not everyone’s cup of tea, to be sure, but if you enjoy bands ranging from Overkill to Judas Priest, you may find at least something to like with Kraze, even if just a little bit. If I had to offer a single direct comparison it would probably be Deadly Blessing, for those who know them.

The quality – both in terms of production and songwriting – seems to vary from track to track, though it’s worth noting there aren’t any stinkers on here. Things start off with a real bang via the awesome title track, which mixes a steadily-marching intro sound with speedy verses and a simple, if catchy, chorus. Add to that some raucous soloing that at times ventures oh so close to crossing that line into atonal squealing and you’ve got a sure-fire winner, the best song on here, actually. Strangely enough, the next tune is my least favorite, due mainly to Cory Laity’s uncanny ability to compress several lines of the chorus into a warp-speed yelp, sort of like a power metal version of Don Doty on the cream and the clear. Anyways, things never do quite reach the heights of the title track, though other winners such as “Mentally Insane” and half-ballad “Liar” do their best to.

The production is never really great, though it’s about as good as anyone has a right to expect – typical 80s analog sound that buries the bass drums (there’s plenty of double bass in there, but you’ve got to strain to pick it out) and bass guitar. But hey, for a collection of demo material, it’s certainly good enough. You can rather easily tell where a different demo begins, but you’ll be too busy destroying your eardrums to care, really.

All in all not a bad release, though it wasn’t exactly given the deluxe treatment – while the lyrics are thankfully included, I’ve thumbed through my booklet several times and still can’t even find where it says who played what. Thought that was standard for a booklet, but it’s not really an issue I suppose. Like much of this obscure 80s metal, a retrospective review finds much of it to be of the “good, not great” variety, and Kraze follows suit. In the grand scheme of things I’m not quite sure what makes this band so worthy of a compilation some fourteen years after the material was recorded, but for what it is, it’s certainly quite enjoyable, and you can hardly beat the price to content ratio, as this can be had at several online mailorders for about five bucks.