Malice - New Breed of Godz (2012)

With a murdering competition during the mid-80's there was bound to happen that several heavy metal bands would eventually just give up. And who can blame them. Standing up against Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer and several other great names is not something you would look forward to. But time's have changed and has given another chance for these older, forgotten bands to rekindle their flame and once again stand up for their music. One of these bands are the American band Malice, a band that have released two previous albums in the mid-80's. But the band's popularity was only mild at best and surely enough they broke up after the EP "Crazy In The Night" in 1989. Now the band is back and re-united since 2006 with new vocalist + drummer and with their third album entitled "New Breed of Godz" the band is once again trying to reach greatness in the music industry.

Even though this is a new full-length album there is only four newly written songs on this album. The rest of the material is re-recordings of old songs. The new songs are the title track, "Branded", "Winds of Death (Angel of Light)" and "Slipping Through The Cracks". Out of these four I would say that the title track is the only one of the new songs that holds a high standard. The song is overall exciting and the instruments cooperate pretty well here. But there is no doubt that it is the older songs that are the stars of "New Breed of Godz". Songs like "Hell Rider", "Against The Empire" and "Sinister Double" definitely shows how good Malice was back in the day.

But to completely understand how the band has evolved during the 25 years since the last full length album I had to go back and compare how the old and new versions stands against each other. The production is of course better now than it was back and there is a significant difference between the singers styles but other than that I feel that there is no great differences between the originals and the re-recordings. I have to say though that "Against The Empire" feels more epic and grand in "New Breed of Godz" than it did on "License To Kill" which is a great improvment. But I think the only meaning with bringing these older songs on this record is to make the younger listeners backtrack to the bands previous album and then get hooked on the band. Did it work on me? Not quitly but I got at least a little interested in the band and I will follow them in the future.

If "New Breed of Godz" did not have the older songs I think this would have been an album that would have reached up to 7 in the rating scale but since the majority of the songs have already been released I am lowering the rating for this album despite the good production and the powerful singing from James Rivera. But if the band is tempted to continue what they have started I would gladly follow them and see what they could do with an album filled with only new material. So let us consider "New Breed of Godz" as a warm up for Malice and instead look forward to what they will bring next.

Songs worthy of recognition: Against The Empire, Sinister Double, New Breed of Godz

Rating: 5/10 Hell Riders