Bide Your Time - 'Point Proven' (Kick Back Records) 5/5

Now the English West Midlands has always been a hot bed of metal and all things hard and heavy. From Black Sabbath and Judas Priest via Diamond Head, Magnum and Doom to Zombie Xtras and Beestung Lips and beyond for over 40 years the area has been throwing up rock, punk and metal of exceptional quality and now we have the regions latest gem. Bide Your Time with this, their debut album.

About two hours ago I started to play this album through to get a grip of what the band are about, and I still sitting here trying to write something about it, but I'm finding very difficult. Basically this album has me hooked and its its very hard to pen an objective take on music that has you moshing around the flat, yelling along to the hooks and generally feeling like a fifteen year old kid in his first mosh pit. But I do wanna do my bit and tell the world about this belting album so I had better get on with it.

Now the release blurb that came with this one described BYT as hardcore, and yes there is certainly a big hardcore influence in here; there are some great short but sweet sub two minutes core fueled tunes on offer. Tracks like Hang & Die, Hopeless and See Through come over a bit like classic cuts from hardcores earliest days and have a certain C.O.C, Stormtroopers Of Death, Concrete Sox vibe to them. But there is far more to this album than old school NYHC revivalism. Oh yes, we have huge slices of classic metal in the mix as well. There are shades of Anthrax in here, the ghost of Black Sabbath, slivers of Priest, a touch or two of RATM, even a sprinkling of classic NWOBHM. This means killer controlled riffage, some inspired lead guitar work and superb yell along choruses - just check out One Sided with its huge sing -a -long 'They wont ever get my vote, the most they'll get are these word I wrote' epic stuff.

There are ten tracks on offer here, everyone is a winner, but if I had to pick just two it would be the aforementioned One Sided and the glorious Who I Was which starts with a great down beat intro that hat tips Californian 'core merchants Welt, builds up via some almost Somnus style grindcore riffage, takes in a gloriously restrained lead break and shudders into an inspired anti-climactic ending.

Basically Bide Your Time have served up here an absolute classic debut album, that not only proves Midland metal is still alive and kicking, but BYT are all set to forge the next chapter of the areas musical legacy.


For Fans of... Somnus, Rage Against The Machine, Stormtroopers of Death, Doom, Anthrax......