Label: Silver Lining Music
Release date: May 24, 2019
Production: Rasmus Bom Andersen
Album length: 50.00 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 9.0 / 10
Diamond Head. Another band with a stormy history, and another band that, with its famous debut “Lightning To The Nations” from the classic N.W.O.B.H.M. days, had a real hand in the worldwide rise of thrash metal, which has been enjoying a fresh spring in recent years. Today the reins at Diamond Head are held by guitarist Brian Tatler, who is also the main songwriter and the forger of the new guitar phrases. Three years ago the band put out a very good album, “Diamond Head”, introducing a refreshed lineup with a new, hugely distinctive vocalist of Danish roots by the name of Rasmus Bom Andersen.
If “Diamond Head” was a solid piece of work, especially when you stack it against some of the band’s less successful “experiments” in the period after the eighties, and a record whose quality built a runway for its potential successor, then “The Coffin Train” is exactly that successor. A great follow-up in every respect, with which Diamond Head, yes, exactly that, ladies and gentlemen, made a return in grand style.
“The Coffin Train”, despite the fact that it’s 2019, actually carries that distant vibe of the seventies turning into the eighties, a little “demo-ish”, unpolished, with even a punk edge (if you like), even though production methods and studio logistics are of course completely different today, and it’s only fitting that a new album generally follows new technological trends, which Diamond Head of course did too. Alongside the otherwise modern production impulses, which managed to capture some of that distant nostalgic time when metal was a young, spotless child full of virgin impetuosity and naivety, the new Diamond Head album develops real bite and welcome misery, the occult kind of doom, which means it’s a decidedly vampirically bristling and also mildly sinister piece of work! A true classic metal album from the hands and mind of a man who lived and breathed those times and helped create them (Brian Tatler)!
The most interesting observation is that, given the unattainability of the “Lightning To The Nations” album, Diamond Head with the new album achieve exactly that, from the other side. Of all the artistic moves Tatler has boldly made with his band over the years, often gambling dangerously with the credibility of an old-school metal pose, “The Coffin Train” is the one where we can say Diamond Head come closest, and most convincingly, to their classic eighties heyday.
The compositions carry traces of Black Sabbath (the track Shadeds Of Black, and then The Sleeper), and Deep Purple too (The Messenger – an incredible cross between “retro Purple” and the N.W.O.B.H.M. era). Of course there’s the standard remark that Tatler was simply raised on the blues (especially when you listen to the soloing), which is purely a matter of generation, and yet the legendary guitarist managed to lay down on tape a series of hugely infectious, penetrating, old-school sharpened metal riffs that give you goosebumps, so convincing and catchy are they as you listen, carrying you straight back to the eighties. The atmosphere is distinctly dark, and the vocal contribution of Rasmus Bom Andersen is at the same time a hugely important factor, which with its exceptional power, laced with a raspy throatiness, links up phenomenally with Tatler’s insight in forging new riffs and, with vocal charisma, breathes into them the dystopian and post-apocalyptic glow of a true doomsday drama theater.
The opener is the sharpest and most metallic. With the “utterly bristling” Belly Of the Beast, Diamond Head even edge toward speed metal territory. That this is a band that jumped 40 years through a time machine is confirmed right away by the next track, Until We Burn, which is dark, unfolds at a slow tempo, and lets not a single ray of hope shine through. Tatler’s embellishments over the phrases, gratefully and with great skill, add that old-school element that deepens the gloomy atmosphere. The band conjures up something similar a little later in the title track. Worth singling out is The Sleeper, which compositionally is the most ambitious piece on “The Coffin Train” and doesn’t hide its inspiration from Black Sabbath, while at the same time developing in a hugely dynamic way and being built from several lead motifs, with potential prog-rock hints sneaking in “in the background” amid all the sharp phrases Diamond Head serve up. The Phoenix even borrows a few arabesques and, as the closing track, is carved brilliantly old-school “to the bone”. As such it ends the album in grand style and leaves the listener in a cramp of high tension and in a “fury” that commands another press of the “play” button on the CD player.
“The Coffin Train” is an exceptionally inspired album, and with it Tatler has finally found the right connection to the eighties and to the cult debut, even though the latter remains unique and unattainable. But for all the artistic moves across this band’s career that so often turned out “lukewarm”, “The Coffin Train” is finally the point where Diamond Head flirted with their roots most directly, most convincingly and with great vehemence. Older and wiser. With a renewed crew in which Tatler has realized his vision to the fullest and which hasn’t said its last word yet. Judging by what the excellent “The Coffin Train” has to offer, Diamond Head will extend their lifespan by at least another 15 years, and that is very, very good and wonderful news. They certainly don’t lack drive and creative nerve!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
01. Belly Of The Beast
02. The Messenger
03. The Coffin Train
04. Shades Of Black
05. The Sleeper (Prelude)
06. The Sleeper
07. Death By Design
08. Serrated Love
09. The Phoenix
10. Until We Burn
Lineup:
Brian Tatler – guitar
Rasmus Bom Andersen – vocals
Karl Wilcox – drums
Andy “Abbz” Abberley – guitar
Dean Ashton – bass guitar, backing vocals
