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Fifth Angel > Time Will Tell > Reviews
Fifth Angel - Time Will Tell

I Tell Ya What - 80%

Tanuki, August 21st, 2022

I know not to judge books by their cover, but sheesh, the USPM scene really didn't put much stock into 'curb appeal', huh? Fifth Angel's Time Will Tell shows us that this band can shred the living hell out of a guitar, and belt pitch-perfect notes into the heavens, but apparently no one can use a ruler. I guess not all album art can look like Armored Saint's Raising Fear, so I should just suck it up and judge the album based on its musical merits, like some kind of reviewer or something. And besides, it doesn't seem like the shoddy cover turned many people away. At the time of writing, the music video for the title track is nearing one million views on YouTube. This may be due to the bouffant hair, leather jackets, and other glorious late 80's grandiosity "ironically" seducing zoomer sensibilities, but hey, more power to them. Because unlike many slow, commercial-minded, ballad-stuffed joyrides through late 80's power metal, Time Will Tell is a great example of how it's done right.

Besides sharing quite a bit in common with the bodacious shredcraft of Racer X's Street Lethal, this album bears an uncanny resemblance to Japan's exotic interpretations of virile "lovey-dovey" metal. This means mountainous weight is placed on the singer's shoulders to guide the song's melody along, while guitars feverishly toil in the background with hot-blooded gallops and ambitious neoclassical fills. 'Midnight Love' is the best demonstration of this in action. It's an utterly captivating dynamo of a love ballad, that sounds a hell of a lot like something Anthem would've written for Tightrope or Bound to Break. Same goes for 'Feel the Heat', which is an equally hard-charging march cut from the same cloth as Loudness's Hurricane Eyes.

Compositions are pensive and well-structured, however, this wouldn't be a Tanuki review if I didn't whine about the lack of uptempo slugfests. Time Will Tell is pretty goddamn egregious in this regard. Its predecessor had 'In the Fallout', 'The Night', and the phenomenal Sacred Oath-esque closer 'Fade to Flames'. Who could forget the closing moments of that track, where vocalist Ted Pilot lets out a galeforce falsetto that sounds like Jon Oliva just found a tarantula in his coffee mug? Here, Ted Pilot is still a sensational vocalist, but a lot of his unrestrained theatrics have no place to call home amongst all the mainstream viability. A real shame on one hand, but on the other, "mainstream viability" is just a harsh way of saying "these songs are catchy with or without blastbeats and maniacal screaming."

So really, it boils down to this: If you like your red, white n' blue power metal nice and dramatic like Ample Destruction or Thundersteel, stick with Fifth Angel's self-titled debut. If you're trying to convince your Bon Jovi-loving dad to give some harder stuff a try, Time Will Tell is your answer.

Fifth Angel Was the Charm for the “Old Mother” - 92%

bayern, October 16th, 2017

Classic heavy metal, the mother of all metal styles, in its pure form remained pretty much a luxury outside the repertoire of the Big Five (Black Sabbath, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Accept, Iron Maiden) as it quite quickly branched out into power, speed, thrash, doom and all the rest. The Germans (Victory, Bonfire, Heaven’s Gate) showed a bigger interest in it, and partially Japan (Loudness, Crowley), but the majority were tributes from here and there that largely remained underground phenomena.

The US scene produced the mighty Riot before it rushed to develop its own boisterous, epic brand of metal, and although Ratt and Motley Crue’s early efforts were going in the right direction, it all soon became too poppy, glammy and commercialized that at some stage no one really bothered with the discovering and the launching of the new Scorpions or the next Judas Priests.

Fifth Angel stayed faithful to the power metal heritage of their homeland on the excellent debut, a seriously underappreciated collection of rousing anthems which should have shot them on the front row with Manowar, Savatage, Crimson Glory, etc. Mentioning the last two, there was a not very overt progressive flair in the execution of some of these numbers that could have been elaborated on… but the guys decided to leave the more complex landscapes to their colleagues, opting instead to unearth the rich heavy metal heritage on the album reviewed here.

And the band have done an awesome job, also well conformed with the overall softening of the heavy/power metal arena, in the US in particular, under the influence of the ever-expanding at the time glam metal wave although traces of the latter are nowhere to be found as this is vintage heavy metal from beginning to end, one of the finest examples of “the mother” being treated with all the veneration it truly deserves. “Cathedral” is an emblematic opener with the bouncy riffs and the great chorus, Ted Pilot outstanding behind the mike without going into any extremes, staying within the mid-ranged parametres, keeping it moderately emotional. “Midnight Love” brings some of the power metal swagger of the debut with the dynamic galloping arrangements, but all is calm and pleasantly idyllic on the nice melancholic heavy rocker “Seven Hours”.

“Broken Dreams” sounds like the obligatory ballad, but there’s more verve and drama to be witnessed here as this cut is another sure winner with its introspective, moderately pessimistic aura (it’s “broken dreams” we’re talking about, after all). The title-track is a feelgood heavy metal hymn which, if nothing else, brightens the mood and also sets the tone for the UFO cover of “Lights Out”, faithfully performed without any embellishments. “Wait for Me” is the only place where some cheese starts sticking out, another more ballad-prone piece with echoes of the Def Leppard repertoire, but time waits for no sleaze, and “Angel of Mercy” comes to provide more bite with its more energetic riffage the cavalcade growing into something wonderfully power metal-ish again on “We Rule”, a belligerent cut with hard-hitting guitars the latter stifled by another attempt at the ballad, this time marginally better, “So Long”, the cycle closed by the infectious crowd pleaser “Feel the Heat”.

Every single song here has a clear radio hit potential as though the guys were deliberately aiming at this particular media, and by all rights they should have conquered it… in another fairer world. Their old fans must have frowned more than just now and then listening to these plainly pop metal-ish at times tracks, but one can’t deny the memorable song-writing and the professional execution, the overall feel quite reminiscent of Bonfire’s “Point Blank” released the same year. An ill-measured attempt at commercialism, to put it this way? Possibly, but this was all a part of the whole movement in the late-80’s with other power metal purveyors like Leatherwolf, Chastain, and even “the kings of metal” Manowar testing these mellower waters, trying to find the shortcut to the box office breakthrough…

Which never became a dream come true for our friends here. The band folded after two strong showings, ones that took me ages literally to track down back in those days. But this is not the main reason why I have such a soft spot for their legacy; one always cherishes those who treat the senior musical citizens… sorry, canons with the proper amount of respect and devotion.

Too late for the big leagues! - 80%

Thorgrim666, August 3rd, 2012

The story of Fifth Angel is very similar to many others during the 80's. After a more than good release on well known UG label Shrapnel Records (Racer X, Vicious Rumors, Cacophony, Chastain, M.A.R.S....), they got the attention of major labels and secured a deal with Epic/CBS Records.

Success seemed ready for an album as "Time Will Tell", the production is top notch, the songs are well crafted and very catchy, the musicians are great and the vocalist pretty good, but nothing happened. One of the possible reasons for this failure would be the time when this album was released. 1989 was already a moment when this mixture of heavy metal and hard rock was in its decline and glam/hard rock was reigning the world.

On the other side, metal bands were getting more extreme everyday and new musical genres were even surpassing thrash metal in terms of violence, the days of extreme metal were close.

I'm pretty sure that an album as "Time Will Tell", with the support of a major label as Epic, would have had a much better reception in 1985/86, but Fifth Angel had lost a bit of their momentum with the long three year span between the debut and this sophomore effort.

Musically talking, this was a classic heavy metal band with influences both from melodic hard rock ("Seven Hours", "Angel of Mercy") and from power/speed metal ("Midnight Love", "We Rule") which would easily link them with contemporaries as Lizzy Borden, Leatherwolf, Queensrÿche, Icon and maybe the Norwegians TNT with their ability to mix melodic hard rock and pure heavy metal.

Probably the debut album was slightly better and this kind of efforts might sound a bit dated to some (not for me, the more 80's sounding, the more I like it!), but I'm totally sure that anyone who enjoys the previously mentioned bands and, as I do, misses the great heavy metal done during the 80's, will have a blast with songs as "Cathedral" "Midnight Love", "Time Will tell" or "Feel the Heat".

Originally written for Ample Destruction 'zine.

In the end there may be some pain - 75%

autothrall, August 8th, 2010

It would not have been possible to follow-up the self-titled Fifth Angel with anything superior, so instead the Seattle band went back to the studio to produce something in a similar vein, but possibly even more accessible than the debut. James Byrd was out, and the band added a few new members in Kendall Bechtel (guitars) and John Marco (bass). By 1989, of course, this radio friendly hard rock and heavy metal was on its way out, aside from the popular glam bands already in rotation on MTV's top countdowns (before the breaking of the alternative rock wave of the ensuing decade), so Time Will Tell really arrived when there was little chance of it being noticed among the crowd, and it did not fare very well, the band splitting up shortly after.

Often in this era a band would follow up a masterpiece with a stark disappointment, but for whatever its worth, Time Will Tell really isn't all that bad. It creates the same catchy atmosphere we heard on Fifth Angel, albeit less inclined towards superb leads or guitar fills that were clearly inspired by the former guitarist. The production is still top notch, the riffs very often stand to memory, and Ted Pilot's vocals are arguably sharpened up even from the previous work. Sadly, the album does suffer its share of less inspired writing than its beautiful sibling. Of the 11 tracks, 3-4 slack behind the remainder, and thus it could not be scored as favorably. But to any fan of House of Lords, Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Queensryche (80s), Lizzy Borden, or Scorpions its still probably a worthwhile listen to this day, an example of unintended obscurity for such polished and accessible writing.

The band starts off huge, putting a few of the best songs out front, with the rocking "Cathedral" at the helm, a steady rocker with nice melodic speed metal licks that ascend alongside Pilot's voice to one of the better, if predictable chorus sequences on the record. "Midnight Love" burns with passionate street metal vibes, popping melodies and solos that very nearly rival the work of Byrd on the debut. "Seven Hours" also survives upon its gleaming rays of guitar lead, though the rest of the song is not that catchy, nor is the ballad "Broken Dreams", though its successful enough to provide the atmosphere I loved about a "Fade to Flames" and not at all difficult to carve through. These are followed by the title track, which is actually a pretty good mid paced hard rocker that should thrill any fans of "The Night" or "Shout It Out" from the debut.

The inclusion of a cover of UFO's "Lights Out" works disturbingly well amidst Fifth Angel's original writing, so much that you'd never expect it if you were not already aware of the English band's original. "Wait for Me" is another track ala "Shout it Out" or "Fifth Angel", with very similar use of chord patterns, but despite a decent stab at the chorus its just not all that effective. I have no such problems with the elegant "Angel of Mercy" or the flowing molten metal that is "We Rule", with a pretty cool gang chorus supplemented with tasty little speed metal licks. "So Long" is another unfortunately forgettable mounting ballad, but the closer "Feel the Heat" is quite good if you forgive the ultimately cheesy title and chorus, at least how they function vocally here.

Time Will Tell is more of the same, and that's not a bad thing, but the individual songs do not seem to captivate the imagination and build up the heart's blood to a volcanic eruption like those of the debut. Cut out a few of its less inspired numbers and throw the remainder into a mix with Fifth Angel, and you've got yourself quite a blissful play list, but as a whole, this is not so readily recommended for consumption. However, if you enjoy radio friendly melodic US metal of the mid to late 80s, it is unlikely you would feel much chagrin at what these nearly 50 minutes indulge. Both Fifth Angel albums would probably be scoffed at by most of today's more extreme metal crowd, since they hinge on glam and the band certainly bore that image to an extent, but those brave souls among us who could care less and just like a decent metal song to bang our head to while we blast it in the car stereo will find something to digest on either of them.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Its a Shame It Had to End Here - 93%

PowerProg_Adam, May 5th, 2004

Fifth Angel is a band that I am surprised to see that they have not exactly hit it big. Their music, is extremely accessable and memorable, expecially on Time Will Tell. The first album had more of an early Queensryche sound to it, except that the vocals weren't really all that high. This is one album that I can listen to repeatedly surprising without really getting bored, because the songs are very catchy, yet they have great instrumentation to keep you interested in the music.

Cathedral is basically a below mid-paced American power metal song with 3 chords and a rather generic chorus that repeats the title of the song a bit much. I am having a hard time trying to figure out why such a mediocre song has been chosen to kick off the album. It follows the formula for musical success, which is try to get the song stuck in your head, which wouldn't be a bad thing if their would be good rhythm and lead to the song.

Seven Hours also isn't all that fast either, but this song has some power to it. Especially with the chorus of that has a strong power chord played twice between the mentioning of Seven and Hours. This song is almost like a heavy Whitesnake song, only more virtuosic and powerful with a singer who has an extremely clean, non-bluesy voice.

Time Will Tell is by far the best song on this album. The singer begins to pick up in his vocal range, the guitar riff is crisp, clear, and complex, and it has an Operation: Mindcrime-esque dueling solos. This song will not leave your head for quite some time after hearing it. There is a video for this song, which also surprises me why it wasn't in higher rotation.

Lights Out, a UFO cover would make Michael Schenker proud. The outro solo is handled flawless, and their is another crisp guitar riff to accompany the extremely powerful bass work that this song encompasses.

Fifth Angel, although coming from the same area as Crimson Glory and Queensryche, they were able to maintain a sound all their own, with a singer who is not just a clone of a Midnight or Geoff Tate, but has a voice that can rival them. Like CG and the Ryche, they also have two extremely talented guitar players that can play virtually anything they would want to. For a heavier edge from Fifth Angel, buy the first album, but for a more memorable and catch album, Time Will Tell is a must.