Let’s just say this up front: what we’re doing here is complaining on a very high level! Perhaps it’s too ambitious – or even presumptuous – to expect ARMORED SAINT to keep writing songs like that forever like they did on their masterpiece “Punching The Sky” a couple of years ago… And yet the album kicks off with ‘Close To The Bone’ in a way that feels familiar, almost as if it was picking up right where the last one left. The second track, ‘Every Man – Any Man’, which is built in a slightly tricky way around the opening riff, turns out to be also quite good. The song builds into a fast-paced number with plenty of melodies and an energetic vocal performance by John Bush, especially during the chorus. But as early as the third track, ‘Not On Your Life’ there are hints of what we’ll encounter time and again throughout the album: at times, it feels as though the album is musically overloaded – as if every musician was moved by the urge to highlight their own contribution to the songwriting. Even though the edgy riff and the driving drum beat of Gonzo Sandoval – partly groovy, sometimes almost angry Thrash like – turn ‘Hit A Moonshot’ into a song that could have been on the previous album. But the impression already gained before persists, however. The following track, the more laid-back sounding ‘Buckeye’, enriched with some cool Country guitar elements, fails to shake off the feeling that, in some places, less would have been more. One wouldn’t exactly expect boring songs that don’t really stick with you, written by ARMORED SAINT, which is why the double ‘It’s A Buzzkill’ and ‘Throwing Caution To The Wind’ comes as quite a surprise. The first one is a mix of Hard Rock with Grunge vocals, while the second turns out to be a more or less unremarkable Metal track that just plods along for four minutes. As mentioned in the beginning already, musically and in terms of musical skills, the album is beyond reproach. But the way the songwriting layers parts on top of and over one another, combined with the fact that some of the songs are truly boring, leaves me at a loss with an album. And to make matters worse finally, it’s packed in a weirdly ugly cover designed by an artificial intelligence program. But: there is one good thing about our modern, digital age: anybody can listen to the album for free before buyin’ it! (ARMORED SAINT die hards will most likely be delighted to hear, that the European digipak edition of the album also includes a well done cover of the Dennis Lambert / Brian Potter track ‘One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison)’, which previously was already covered by PEOPLE, THE FOUR TOPS, SANTANA and THE DOOBIE BROTHERS. And since ARMORED SAINT’s version had only been released digitally and as a video before, this is a nice little extra for sure – Frank). www.facebook.com/thearmoredsaint, www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords