Crimes of Insanity

Generally most will argue you into the ground that NWOBHM was more than dead by the mid to late 1980's, but Tysondog were one of the few that certainly believed elsewise. If this album would've been released several years before it probably would have stirred up a lot of attention, but they were a little late. Regardless there were still bands like Cloven Hoof, Satan, and so forth carrying out the NWOBHM torch more than most so it would be incredibly unfair to leave out Tysondog here. There's definitely some influences of the UK movement here but they turned things up a notch and actually did things a little differently.

The two aspects I believe that truly set this apart from your typical NWOBHM stuff is: 1) The speed and 2) The incredibly heavy production. Sure I guess Judas Priest's Painkiller was blistering fast for some, but half of this album is filled up with songs that easily match that speed. NWOBHM has always been typically faster than the norm but I'd say it was usually within the swift guitar work for most bands while here, it's everything. The drums are all over the place and every instrument is always over the top. The production gives this album a lot of its flavor too, while the drums might seem a bit overpowering at times but they never completely dominate everything here, it's all just damn heavy and makes for a great experience for those wanting to blow some speakers.

On their previous album they had the highly talented Alan Hunter on vocals, whom would later find himself on Pariah's comeback album Unity in 1998. Here however Clutch Carruthers has fully taken over that duty and does an excellent job, in fact I'm glad he's the one singing here. His voice isn't quite as clean as Hunters and he has a little more rasp to his singing, but his performance is easily more aggressive. On top of this he does an awesome job hitting those high notes and carrying out great choruses, really his singing is actually very similar to Hunters but overall heavier.

Another amazing factor here is guitarist Paul Burdis, that's him. The one and only axeman here. It seems a little rare to find UK bands of this style with a single guitarist and listening to this album without knowing this fact, you'd easily be in the belief there's two guys here. The guitar work is very fast, swift, catchy as hell, and the solo's are memorable. Though you can also expect tons of dual harmonies and layered guitars, thanks to the studio magic of course. I'm sure they had to pick someone else up for live shows. Rob Walker on drums does a fantastic job himself, be prepared for some furiously fast beats here and great original rhythm's. He certainly loves annihilating things with the double bass but it gets changed up pretty often, it shouldn't be an issue for anyone. The bass unfortunately seems a little lost in this thick mix, it pops out every so often but it's hard to focus on. Perhaps it's just overly heavy? Probably the only downfall here.

I guess the only real flaw here is it's pretty straight up simple material. It has that terrible nack of being a little predictable as well ... fast song, slow song, fast song, etc. And well the lyrics are hardly thought provoking, almost a little comical at times. Regardless of having simplistic structuring, these guys still did a great job coming up with some original tunes of their own and they stayed far away from the repetitive bug. The Alice Cooper cover of School's Out is damn impressive. A little silly throwing it in the middle here but the pace fits in with everything else fairly well. Overall this is pure heavy metal in the NWOBHM form with an upgrade on speed and force, delivered extremely well. Those looking for classic UK metal in one of its fastest and heaviest forms should look no further.