Label: Heavy Metal Records
Release date: March 11, 2022
Production: Cloven Hoof
Album length: 41.29 min
Genre: Heavy Metal / N.W.O.B.H.M.
Rating: 9.0/10
Cloven Hoof are metal legends today. The band comes from the N.W.O.B.H.M. days, and even though their self-titled debut, released in 1984, somewhat missed the ideal window to rank among the more prominent heavy metal acts, their first three albums are now counted among the cult achievements of that era. These days the band records and arranges in a far more modern way, in step with advances in studio tech as well as the branching out of the genre itself and its subgenres. That means that, compared to some of their still-active generational peers, they’ve fused newfangled tricks with their traditionalism very effectively.
With their last three albums especially, the band has found the stability it was after. “Time Assassin” – the band’s eighth album overall – is the closing chapter of the Dominator saga. That’s the ‘spiked, horned steel uncle’ full of nasty deeds who was already being talked about back in the eighties, when the band released the album “Dominator” (1988). The previous album, the superb-in-every-way “Age Of Steel” (RockLine review) from 2020, revived the story, and “Time Assassin” wraps it up. How exactly, everyone has to work out for themselves. It seems that the arrival of the hero (‘Time Assassin’) finally puts things back in their place.
It’s interesting that since reactivating in 2000, Cloven Hoof seem to want to sound a notch harder with every album. In fact, each new record they put out feels harder than the one before. The new album is by now certainly their most aggressive and mercilessly sharpened effort. There are no major departures from its predecessor, apart from the feeling that this one hits even more devastatingly. When the listener gets to the opening, especially the run of the first three tracks (Guardians Of The Universe, Liquidator, Lords Of Death), it confirms that this time the band channeled all its force into creating the most destructive album of its career. It’s definitely noticeably less ‘complicated.’ So: the arrangements are simpler than on its predecessor “Age Of Steel” and on “Who Mourns For The Morning Star?” (2017, RockLine review), which puts the record’s aggression in even sharper relief. Vocalist George Call’s fiercely aggressive singing does its part too, and he’s unbelievable in his explosiveness. He keeps phenomenal power even way up in dizzying vocal heights, reminding you in those moments of Tim Ripper Owens’ approach (in the chorus, Liquidator sounds in a way like a younger cousin of the Judas Priest track Jugulator). This is Call’s third album with Cloven Hoof, and on the new record the singer is once again superb in what he delivers, especially in the variety his brilliant voice has to offer.
In this new era, Cloven Hoof have carried over a few traits that tie them clearly and unmistakably to their very beginnings in 1979. They’re grim and doomy through and through. They have no patience for arrangement ‘sweetening’ or any anthemic melodies that would come off as naive and joyful in any way, the kind of stuff that’s everywhere in today’s power metal, for instance. This is a classic heavy metal band building a ferociously aggressive satanic march on the new album, closer to speed metal elements, and at moments even to classic thrash metal, although their generational kinship with Iron Maiden is still the best point of reference at every moment of the record. The phrasing is backed by twin guitar harmonies in thirds, which is a must when you come out of the N.W.O.B.H.M. movement. The band also builds up bombast, only it’s dark and dramatic. The most musical variety in one place comes from the ballad-leaning After Forever, which cools down the fiercely aggressive opening stretch of the album, and a higher level of musicality especially ‘creeps’ into the second half, when Beltaine Fire, Highway Man, Tokyo Knights and the closing Carnival Of Lost Souls follow one after another, the latter sounding the most traditional, or old-school, of the lot. There’s no shortage of moments of full-on theatrical epicness either, as embodied by Beltaine Fire, the most dynamic track on the album and the most vivid in its arrangement.
After everything written above, “Time Assassin” is sure to satisfy every musical taste. Newer fans of deafening sonics and hopelessness, and certainly today’s ‘old uncles’ who spent their teens in the eighties and swear first and foremost by tradition. Cloven Hoof are an example of a now-cult band that, considering its tenure, has more than excellently absorbed the influences of power metal’s boom at the turn of the millennium. The album keeps a firm gaze on the eighties, even if it’s been ‘updated.’ It radiates true-believer rage, primordial jaggedness, fury and real cunning with a pinch of the occult! There’s no room for teary pathos or saccharine sweetness. The arrangements are certainly drawn on a grand scale, and here and there an etching of orchestration is added, which gratefully contrasts the moods and lifts the album’s dynamics. So Cloven Hoof haven’t said their last word yet; with this kind of committed effort, as the album “Time Assassin” now excellently proves too, it’s clear that band leader and bassist Lee Payne and his crew have a few more winning aces up their sleeve.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Guardians of the Universe
2. Liquidator
3. Lords of Death
4. After Forever
5. Time Assassin
6. Beltaine Fire
7. Highway Man
8. Tokyo Knights
9. Carnival of Lost Souls
Lineup:
George Call – vocals
Chris Coss – guitar
Ash Baker – guitar
Lee Payne – bass
Mark Harris Bristow – drums
