Does it get any better than old school hard rock and heavy metal? The free, don’t give a shit, riff and roar that I loved as a kid and love still. The sound of the early 80’s movement that launched a thousand careers and created stars. That essence of headbanging hard and heavy music that grabbed you by the balls! It’s all here om the latest from Band of Spice. The ‘Spice’ in question of course is the main man with the Spiritual Beggars and on ‘By The Corner Of Tomorrow’ he’s channeling the urgency and energy of that perfect split in Heavy Metal – Black Sabbath’s ‘Heaven and Hell’ and Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Blizzard of Ozz’.
What you get is a wonderful heavy hitting retro ride into the world of the early 80’s where Rock and Heavy Metal lived closely together and there weren’t a million Genres to confuse things. These days of course everyone seems to want to label everything in an infinite number of ways. This says fuck that and gets straight to the point!
We start proceedings with the Maiden meets Kyuss style opener of ‘The Fading Spot’ and quickly following that comes the vintage Blizzard of Ozz sounds that is ‘Call Out Your Name’, In between that and ‘The Sharp Edge’ which offers a more frenetic, angrier, darker sound which and sits nicely as it slithers with a searching vocal over a vintage Sabbath riff; comes the inexplicable Tehom – (‘The Deep’ in Hebrew) which starts gently and ends abruptly after 1.26 and leaves you feeling shortchanged and wondering did someone sneak it on? Goth? It doesn’t really lead cleanly anywhere really. It’s the only dud here.
If love love Spice’s past work and love a bit of stoner metal you can’t pass this one up! This is just a riot of Hard Rock / Heavy Metal delivered old school style and extremely addictive!
8/10
Tracklist: 1. The Fading Spot | 2 Call Out Your Name | 3 Tehom | 4 The Sharp Edge | 5 By the Corner of Tomorrow | 6 Midnight Blood | 7 Reglutina | 8 Cold Flames | 9 Rewind the Wind