2005-11-28
Widow are a relatively young American band, founded in 2000 by several like-minded musicians, in order to create dark, melodic metal, with heavy 80's metal influences, judging from their debut release, they succeeded.
Band members are certainly excellent musicians, the lead guitar work, the excellent bass paying, solid drumming, all do a fine job, and the vocals are the searing high vocals of a fine 80's metal band, it all ticks.
Main influences are quite obvious, a lot of King Diamond and Merciful fate, evident in the abundance of guitar leads and a lot of the riffs, tracks such as Witch Way have old King Diamond written all over them.
There's also quite a lot of Iron Maiden, early Maiden that is, the opening track has great bass guitar work that reminded me of Steve Harris's work on their early albums.
The only thing that pissed me off was the moaning girl in the first track, she starts the track by Cumming for Satan, and then manages to fuck up the lead in the middle of the song, hey, enjoy yourself lady, but not in the middle of the track!
The sound is surprisingly good, the booklet suggest that the band did not have the biggest of budgets to make the album, but they still manage to come off as professionals with a sound that scream "OLD SCHOOL!!" but without the regular deficiencies that some 80's metal albums had.
Probably the most evident focal point of the band is lead Guitarist Cristof's amazing lead work, he has managed to grasp the sound and technique of some great metal guitarists, and he uses his talent freely in the album.
The lack of a kitsch ballad is something worth every compliment as well, by the way.
There's not much in the originality section in the album, but frankly, that's a good thing, Widow just succeed in making solid old-school melodic metal the way it should sound, and that's good enough for me.
Alon Miasnikov
