Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Blitzkrieg
Label: Mighty Music
Release: 2018
Runtime: 55:54
Rating: 3.5/5
»Judge Not!« is the new album from the uncompromising cult N.W.O.B.H.M. legends Blitzkrieg. Their ninth studio effort overall is by no means bad, but it definitely could have been a lot better. It doesn’t reach the level of the cult debut, yet it’s still a far better album than the days when the band was wandering around in hopeless creative drought and churning out forgettable studio creations.
Well, expectations were high after a five-year break, since for »Judge Not!« the band went to record with renowned Danish sound engineer Jacob Hanseon, saying they were fired up by the sound of »Pandemonium« (2011) by the famous Danish hard rockers Pretty Maids, which Hansen naturally shaped in that very same studio.
The production is better than on »Back From Hell«, no question, but this time it doesn’t decide anything when it comes to separating »the wheat from the chaff«. Once again, the new album suffers from a lack of unified songwriting focus, so it doesn’t bring a real leap in quality over its predecessor. The first half is promising again. Who Is Blind and Forever Is A Long Time perfectly capture the essence of the musical core Blitzkrieg come from, and when the utterly doomed Reign On Fire joins them, appetites for the album quickly and entirely justifiably start to swell. Brian Ross’s recognizable, one-of-a-kind vocal character, a dark and occult sound, passages with added third harmonies, predatory phrasing. Pure terror from the ossified British school of metal. If All Hell Is Breaking Loose feels a bit clichéd, Angels Or Demons fixes that taste with an excellent vocal shot from Ross. But then things quickly take a turn “their own way”. What follows is a good eleven minutes of wasted time, embodied by the Saxon-style copycat Loud And Proud, with its seriously clichéd “singalong” chorus, and later in the album, a thoroughly tasteless flirtation with the AOR genre in Without You. Those are the eleven minutes that kill the album’s initial momentum and demote it to the second-rate level of inconsolable hard rock nostalgia for old farts. The last three songs improve that impression, but can’t entirely fix the bitter aftertaste. No need to reinvent the wheel: everything rises and falls on the songwriters, and in the revamped Blitzkrieg lineup, where besides founding figure Brian Ross, who has weathered every storm, only guitarist Ken Johnson has stuck around the longest (since 2002), there’s no clearly focused stance like, say, the one the brothers in Satan have, which would allow a clear creative focus and the creation of consistent, pure-blooded guitar phrases drawn from the true primal source of the heavy metal bible. That’s why »Judge Not!« suffers from a lack of consistency and fluctuates in quality. The closing Falling Into Darkness wants to be as apocalyptic as it gets, but it lacks a bit more imagination and wit in the arrangement. A track that’s too long, and one that Satan, in their current lineup, would definitely have pulled off much better.
»Judge Not!« does fix the impression left by its predecessor and carries more tangible, metal-revived definition, even if it occasionally drifts off entirely into the bosom of hard rock “borderlands”. At times it suffers from inconsistent arrangements, so the quality wobbles. A very solid first half with the first five tracks, but after that you’ll have to grit your teeth to push through to the album’s final second, because there’s way too much outstanding metal on this planet right now, and the average mortal has far too little time to spend on the contents of the solid but still average »Judge Not!« for too long.
Lineup
Brian Ross – vocals
Ken Johnson – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Alan Ross – guitar, backing vocals
Matt Graham – drums
Huw Holding – bass guitar
Production
Jacob Hansen
Tracklist
1. Heretic
2. Who Is Blind
3. Forever Is A Long Time
4. Reign On Fire
5. All Hell Is Breaking Loose
6. Angels Or Demons
7. Loud And Proud
8. Without You
9. Judge Not Lest You Yourself Be Judged
10. Wide Leged And Headless
11. Falling Into Darkness
