Medusa Touch is a heavy metal band from the UK formed in the early eighties just as the burgeoning NWOBHM movement was beginning to take over the world. Dogged by numerous line-up changes during their formative years, the band went quiet from 1991 for almost thirty years! Resurfacing in 2018 with their debut album ‘Terror Eyes: The Anthology’, Medusa Touch keeps alive the spirit of the glorious eighties with their sophomore album ‘Insaniteyes’, released in 2022…
…featuring eleven songs of old-school, traditional heavy metal. Storming riffs, pummelling drums and soaring vocals – Medusa Touch is back! And hitting harder than ever – ‘Committed To The Cause’ launched the album with an explosive blast of up-tempo, highly energetic, and fast-paced “foot on the monitor” style heavy metal. The snarling rasp of the singer (and founding member) Gordon “Gogsy” Sinclair gives the band’s music an aggressive aura – the kind of aggression that’s normally associated with thrash metal! What a blistering start – ‘Fallen Back’ maintaining the album’s devastating drive of crushing heavy metal. Albeit at a slower pace, yet totally destructive with its foot-stomping attitude and immense force blowing the fucking hell out of the airways!
The incendiary style of the opening two songs is just incredible – Medusa Touch refusing to relent on their explosive nature with the barrage of fireworks that goes by the name of ‘Get Down’. Featuring the instantly loveable classic sound of traditional heavy metal, the band unashamedly show their roots – the UK, the founders of the legendary NWOBHM. Hell fucking yeah! Blazing into sight, ‘Metropol 3324’ is a headbanger of the tallest order, with mosh pits all around the world becoming a frenzied sea of jumping metal heads – their heads just a blur as they energetically flex their necks to breaking point. The energy and pizzazz of the album so far have been amazing – the intensity too! Adopting a classic old-school vibe, ‘The Shooter’ exhibits the sound of the NWOBHM perfectly. And I feel myself being transported back to my rebellious teenage years during the eighties when I shunned the popular pop music scene for the mighty metal one…with bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead, and Saxon all blasting out my stereo at high volume!
With unrelenting mercy, Medusa Touch steams on with the head bangingly addictive ‘Asylum’, striding tall and proud with a majestic swagger of a band really enjoying themselves. For I know I am – traditional heavy metal is what I grew up with and will always have a special place in my heart.
So when a band – either old or new – comes along with an album of old-school heavy metal, I always fall headlong in love! And that’s exactly what’s happening here – the band introducing an epic atmosphere with the stealthy ‘Secrets Never Told’, building a crescendo of anticipation before heaviness comes crashing down like a hundred wrecking balls in full flight! The tongue-in-cheek ‘Money Shot’ features a little of the AC/DC boogie among its metal leanings – Medusa Touch introducing a rockier feel that’s gonna attract fans of hard rock to the band’s music. And most likely convert them into metal heads too!
And as the album moves on, the heaviness is still in full force, ‘Dancing Angels’ resonating perfectly with the iconic guitar sound of the NWOBHM. I’m telling you – even if you’re new to Medusa Touch you’re gonna instantly know they’re a British band. And a bloody good one too! Traditional heavy metal has never sounded so good – ‘Stand Your Ground’ is the next barnstorming barrage of head bang-able heavy metal. Albeit with the swaggering poise of Southern rock…is there such a thing as Southern metal? Maybe, just maybe, you’re listening to it! Sadly all good things come to an end, and so does this album – but you know there’s a repeat button, right?
Press it, and you can listen all over again – with no limit as to how many times! Yes, readers, you can listen to ‘Insaniteyes’ time and time again – and I know I will. Closing the album is the melodic metal march of the anthemic ‘When The Poison Flows’, featuring a bouncy edge not heard anywhere else on the album. What an ending to a sparkling fifty minutes of metal.
Overall, an unrelenting barrage of traditional heavy metal, highly head bang-able and one hundred percent loveable.
Medusa Touch: Facebook
Release Year: 2022
Label: Devils Clause Records
Category: Album
Country: UK
Reviewed by Iron Mathew for Frenzy Fire, and Metal-Roos.
