The Rods – ‘Brotherhood Of Metal’
Album Review By Adam McCann
Steamhammer/SPV Records/Heavy Metal
Since The Rods returned in 2010 and delivered their comeback album ‘Vengeance’, the New Yorkers have been relatively quiet, give or take the 2015 reissue of ‘Hollywood’ from 1986. Like a bolt out of the blue, the band announced that this year they would finally follow up ‘Vengeance’ with ‘Brotherhood of Metal’.
The Rods have always been somewhat of a cult band, but within the circle of those in the know, the band always have a special place, always able to show that they have had the guts and integrity to make any fan of metal fall instantly in love with them. Therefore, there are no surprises here that ‘Brotherhood…’ has this appeal; this is an album which has some excellent singalong choruses and memorable passages guaranteed to easily please fans of the heavy metal genre. However, the main issue here with ‘Brotherhood…’ are the vocals, on their own they appear quite weak lacking the power needed; yet when given a much-needed boost courtesy of the backing vocals, it delivers the balls required when approaching quality of this nature. Yet, this pedantic issue aside, there are some fantastic heavy metal songs here such as ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’ and ‘Everybody’s Rockin’’, whilst ‘Tyrant King’ has all snarl of Twisted Sister. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything new here and ‘Louder Than Loud’ does borrow heavily from Black Sabbath’s ‘The Mob Rules’, but ultimately who cares? It is this predictable nature which makes ‘Brotherhood…’ so damned endearing and above all else, enjoyable.
If ‘Brotherhood…’ shows anything, it’s that The Rods had it 1982 and they still have it now, it just can’t be helped wondering how phenomenal this album would sound had it had the unbridled power of someone like Rob Halford at the helm.
Rating : 72/100
MHF Magazine/Adam McCann
