Elm Street is a heavy metal band from Australia formed in 2008, releasing three albums to date – ‘Barbed Wire Metal’ (2011), ‘Knock ‘Em Out… With A Metal Fist’ (2016), and ‘The Great Tribulation’ emerging in 2023…
…featuring eight songs across a lengthy fifty-one minutes – ‘The Great Tribulation’ building upon the achievements of the band’s first two albums! Traditional heavy metal is very much the band’s forte, and with their third full-length release, the band are heavier, punchier, and more intense than ever – the new album coming to life with the eleven-minute opener ‘Seven Sirens’. Eleven minutes I hear you all cry! Yes – eleven minutes! The band’s decision to open with such a lengthy song just goes to show how much confidence Elm Street have in their music – ‘Seven Sirens’ is a furious gallop of infectious heavy metal to turn heads and make every listener sit up and take notice! Take notice of a band performing at the top of their game, delivering an epic journey of pulsating heavy metal – and it’s still only the first song!
Just how do you follow ‘Seven Sirens’? Well – Elm Street go from the longest song on offer to the shortest one, ‘Take The Night’ clocking in at under three minutes in length! And what a three-minute – galloping traditional heavy metal with feet firmly planted on the monitor, the band not dropping the intensity level from the album’s opener. And bringing the glorious sound of the iconic NWOBHM to the fore, ‘The Price Of War’ canters on, rhythmically banging heads wherever it’s heard and played. Elm Street – the Thunder from down under, are delivering old-school heavy metal as it should sound, the four-piece Melbourne (Australia) outfit perfectly recreating a forty-year-old style pioneered by legendary bands Angel Witch, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Saxon.
All five of the remaining songs chime in at over six minutes apiece – three of them stretching past the seven-minute mark! The first ‘If Provoked, Will Strike’, is the heaviest song heard so far, featuring a more muscular style of metal – more muscular as in the American power come heavy metal style. The band are cruising now, ‘The Great Tribulation’ relentlessly rolling on with ‘Behind The Eyes Of Evil’ and a tense, eerie intro full of frightening sound effects! The tension builds to a crescendo, and then BOOM! ‘Behind The Eyes Of Evil’ turns into a menacing stomp, full of groove metal swagger and scathing vocals – vocals that have always been on the edge of menacing, now charge fully into the menace zone! And with a sudden increase in oomph, the album roars on with ‘The Last Judgement’, bringing the power-driven metal style of Judas Priest to the fore and blending it with the most magnificent melodious intent heard so far. And it’s an instrumental too – one of those cracking instrumentals that holds your attention from start to finish!
And as ‘The Great Tribulation’ strides on, the band move over to the dark side, or rather the “midnight blue” side, with ‘The Darker Side Of Blue’ – a mellow feel descending upon the album. For the first forty seconds or so, ‘The Darker Side Of Blue’ gets heavier, building to a crescendo, introducing soulful vocals and strolling very close to balladry. Now regular readers already know my stance on ballads appearing on metal albums – they shouldn’t! So it should come as no surprise then, that this little foray into ballad territory has disrupted the album’s level of intensity – for me it has anyway. And before you all shout and scream at me, I fully appreciate other metalheads have different views to me of which I have absolutely no quarrel. Bringing the album to a close, ‘A State Of Fear’ is a thunderous tirade of mid-tempo metal, changing pace to become an all out gallop with a very strong old-school feel. Fans of HammerFall, Helloween, ‘Maiden and ‘Priest are gonna love ‘A Great Tribulation’ – I suggest if you want a copy for Christmas you’d better place your order now!
Overall, a galloping album of head-bangable heavy metal featuring high intensity coupled with an immense infectious level.
TRACKLIST
Seven Sirens
Take The Night
The Price Of War
If Provoked, Will Strike
Behind The Eyes Of Evil
The Last Judgement
The Darker Side Of Blue
A State Of Fear
Elm Street: Facebook
Release Year: 2023
Label: Massacre Records
Category: Album
Country: Australia
Reviewed by Iron Mathew for Frenzy Fire and Metal-Roos.
