This compilation of third- and fourth-rate metal never-weres, should have been called "Heavy Metal Washouts". Unless the listener is so deeply devoted to the genre that any nonsense released under its rubric is considered worth owning, it would be very difficult indeed to find a single buyer for this stuff. When bad hair metal power ballads like
Enuff Z'nuff's "New Thing" is juxtaposed against
the Bulletboys' "Smooth Up" and the ingeniously named
Misfits wannabe anthem "Triple Sixs" by
Soil, you simply have no real direction or even evidence for presentation. Metal circles are notoriously segregated: most speed metal fans hate death metal; black metal fans hate tech-metal, doom metal heads are put off by virtually anything else, etc. Most of what's here doesn't even rate classifying. The only exceptions are
Ashes of Your Enemy whose "Surrender" is easily the best cut in the bunch, followed by
Single Bullet Theory's "Murder Machines." In fact, they are the only two redeeming things here.
Heavy Metal Warriors should be avoided at all costs. ~ Thom Jurek