DENIED - When the Slate Becomes Diamonds

Seriously now, what’s wrong with the Italian scene? They seem to have abandoned their well-known power metal genre and began to play classic heavy metal, feeling a bit nostalgic about this music’s past. Ok there are some very decent albums like that of “Frozen Tears” that I reviewed a few days ago, but enough’s enough.
\r\nUsually I am excited when I listen to bands playing what we now call “classic heavy metal” but when it comes to Denied I personally prefer to listen to Iron Maiden’s “Seventh son...” or “Somewhere in Time”. I mean why should I listen to some Iron Maiden clones when I can listen to Iron Maiden themselves? So what we have here is Denied’s first attempt entitled “When the slate becomes diamonds”. Well I clearly see the slate…but not any diamonds on this one. This album is nothing more than a less-than-mediocre heavy metal album. The compositions are as if they got the 5 first Iron Maiden albums, changed the lyrics and recorded a medley of their most popular songs, then they produced the album with a bit of
\r\nN.W.O.B.H.M. feeling to add the songs a touch of times past and here it is. As for the vocals, I bet the singer would sell his soul not to become Bruce Dickinson but to have the skill to be a heavy metal singer, something that he’s obviously not. His voice is more than annoying while at times he screams just for the sake of screaming. To make the things worse the bass player Giuseppe Regi thinks he could be a Steve Harris clone and he struggles to play as such in a ridiculous way. I always considered our neighboring country to be a force to reckon in the heavy metal scene, there are a lot of great bands coming from there, but it was always lacking in originality. As for me, since the band’s name is Denied, I deny not to “slate” this one.
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\r\nDimitris Karantounias\r\n