3 INCHES OF BLOOD -

3 INCHES OF BLOOD - HERE WAITS THY DOOM - CENTURY MEDIA  
Well, at least Here Waits Thy Doom answers the irony-or-not quandary we’ve all been mired in: if this irony, then no one has ever analysed its subject-matter as closely as 3 Inches Of Blood. Given an approaching mid-sized pure metal catalogue and tours to match, 3 Inches Of Blood is essentially Canada’s answer to Wolf (Sweden) as a group that reveres Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and especially Accept (along with hints of thrash) as genuinely as that ”˜80s kid with the bullet belt and, most importantly, without any sense of hipster pretension. Here Waits Thy Doom is an impressive traditional metal outing then, albeit one that is heavily front-loaded with killer opener Battles And Brotherhood and immediate follow-up Rock In Hell proving, down to the song-titles, that 3 Inches Of Blood is as metal, in all seriousness, as the forefathers that (heavily) inspired it. Things go awry with what amounts to a Dio b-side (or c-side) with Preacher’s Daughter, a surprisingly lame take on the traditional metal/Heaven And Hell mid-paced record centre point and though 3 Inches Of Blood recovers with the unbridled energy of anthem-in-the-making Call Of The Hammer, Here Waits Thy Doom has stumbled in an unrecoverable way. Those vocals can only be taken in small doses too, which tends to understandably limit the appeal of the records these dudes put forth for mass consumption. - David Perri