FIRE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN

Being a big metal fan it's nice to listen to an old school band churn out some old school metal, and the BOC are a group that I've always found interesting, but this album is far below their usual standards.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the album, but it's cursed with far too many problems. For example it seems that the usual brilliance of Buck Dharma's guitar is all but drowned out by the sound of that 80s synthesizer, and the usually strong vocals range from sounding like the BOC to early Gamma Ray to Weird Al Yankovich. Tracks like FIRE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN and AFTERDARK could have easily been made better by bringing the guitar to the foreground, while on tracks like SOLE SURVIVOR and DON'T TURN YOUR BACK a bit more effort could have been put into the vocals, it seems.

It's not all bad, though, VETERAN OF THE PSYCHIC WARS offers a very prog track, with very well done lyrics, it's too bad they didn't make a more original choice on drum sounds. BURNIN' FOR YOU and VENGENCE are easily the standouts on the album, which, coinsidentally, have a heavy amount of guitar on the guitar to synthesizer ratio. BURNIN' is a very well done, radio friendly song, while VENGANCE is a bit on the darker side, but offers a nice bit of non-linear writting with the breakdown at center-song.

This album is not unenjoyable, nor is it bad by any means, I just think the BOC have better in them. 1.5 to 2 stars is all I'm willing to give this one.