Band: Idols Are Dead
Album: Mean
Genre: Metal/Hardcore
Label: Scarlet

Tracks:
1. This Is Not The End
2. Let’s Do It
3. Dance With The Devil
4. Pain For Sale 
5. Dirt
6. It’s So Easy
7. The Name of My Rage
8. Proud To Be Sick
9. Twiggy

Italy has spent the last few years breaking into the international metal scene. Not too many acts have made it all the way through just yet, but allow me to introduce you to one band that brings enough heavy stuff to lay your favorite band to waste. If you took driving 80’s metal and what Avenged Sevenfold wishes they sounded like now and put it together, you’d get Idols Are Dead. Mean, the band’s new album, brings the rock, the melody, and everything else the modern rock scene has been needing healthy doses of with a twist of originality and throwback.

 I know many might find my rip on Avenged Sevenfold a bit rough, but it was honestly the first thing I thought of when, “This is Not The End,” began to play. It’s driving and laced with melody and riffs, but it isn’t all tarnished by some poor raspy vocalist. Rather, it comes out like heavy metal in the 80’s was and the sound bands always talk about being missing from the modern scene. I’m not talking Bon Jovi “hair metal,” but Judas Priest metal. You know, relentless and crushing, yet laced with various pop sensibilities in the writing. This is very apparent on, “Dance With The Devil,” which seems to reference Billy Idol’s songbook, but keeps things very heavy throughout.

“Pain For Sale,” a Metallica wannabe track, brings a much welcomed guitar solo that would be fitting on any music related video game and puts most American rock bands to shame. Adds a ton more chugs, gutteral vocals, and a cover of, “It’s So Easy,” that’s crunching enough to destroy any poser, and you’ve got almost every side of, Mean in the books. However, I will add that the closer, “Twiggy,” does lean a bit toward mixing the punk and metal sides more than the rest of the disc. This is done generally through simplistic lyrics and punishing metal, but it works so well that you can’t help, but to like it.

In the end, Idols Are Dead reincarnate the spirit of heavy metal and they do it in only 9 songs. So many bands spend their lives claiming to be bringing back the rock,” but Idols are Dead are the first band I think can back up that statement. Who cars if the new Metallica let you down, or that Avenged Sevenfold will never duplicate Waking The Fallen, you have new heroes to follow: Idols are Dead!

*Written By: James Shotwell*
Grade: 8/10

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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