ALBUM REVIEW: HYENA - About Rock and Roll - Dying Victims Productions
With a name like Hyena, (with its not insignificant "y" and the easily render-able and readable logo), I brought some expectations to this review. About Rock and Roll (Dying Victims Productions) exceeds all of them. Peru never sounded so good.
All ten tracks are high-energy traditional metal, with all the self-referential meta lyrics and guitar solos they can jam into thirty-eight minutes. Hyena travels no new ground here, but they absolutely stomp all over old school metal.
The opening grooves of "Nightriders" deliver a solid preview of the rest of this monument to metal. "About Rock and Roll" brings the first of several of those meta self-referential tunes. I'm not sure what it is about metal that makes every band create tracks selling the audience on the awesomeness, brutality, vigor, or party time of whatever metal they're pushing. I mean, it's been going on since Bill Haley and His Comets exhorted is to "Rock Around the Clock" but I have yet to hear a Top 40 act extolling the virtues of autotune and their reliance on samples. So, besides "ARR," Hyena pummels us with "Ready to Explode," and "Metal Machine."
The standard mix of horror, dark mysticism, and occult themes provide the other primary lyrical content - "Hail the Fire," "Epitome of Evil," and "Echoes of the Underworld" deliver with the twin axe attack of most NWOBHM acts.
This time machine of delicious riffage fits in my collection in the Quiet Riot, WASP, and Raven. Despite the glaring influences of Iron Maiden, and Randy Rhodes, at the end of the day, I still land primarily on WASP as the overall "sounds like."
Except for the fact that everywhere is now connected with everywhere, and any element of culture can show up anywhere, you'd want to blame their Andean origins for the old-school sound. I've been fortunate enough to get a bunch of non-American metal lately, and I'm jazzed as hell that the international scene is robustly populated with creative takes on existing styles.
If your Classic Rock station plays Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, and Judas Priest you're gonna want this album. Like, now.
Buy the album here: Bandcamp
10 / 10
LARRY ROGERS
Larry Rogers, Ghost Cult Magazine, Hyena, Dying Victims Records, Quiet Riot, WASP, Raven, Bill Haley and His Comets, Iron Maiden, Randy Rhodes, Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue, Judas Priest, Peru, Classic Rock, NWOBHM, Yugoboy Productions, Yugoboy's Stereo
