AGENT STEEL “No Other Godz Before Me” SEALED SPEED METAL

AGENT STEEL “No Other Godz Before Me”(LABEL BACK ON BLACK) SEALED RECORDED 2010 LIMITED EDITION 2 LP SET IN GATEFOLD JACKET ON SPLATTER VINYL HEAVY SPEED METAL

American speed metal merchants Agent Steel will probably go down in history as one of metal’s great ‘what might have been’ stories; burning brightly in the mid eighties for a three year period that spawned some truly great American metal, they then seemed to implode under the sheer weight of public expectation and private, well, mania. Several attempts at relaunching the band with various permutations of original and new members have come and gone over the years, and so we arrive in 2021 with the to-some joyous news that the band are reforming, again!

… Except a reunion this ain’t. As noted at the top of this review, Agent Steel 2021 is just madcap vocalist John Cyriis and some other guys, of whom more later on. But that said, this combination of musos does at least give this thing it’s best shot, with this resultant album being not half the car crash it might have been given Cyriis’ troubled reputation.

The man himself is in good form – I’ve seen comments elsewhere that say he’s using a lot of autotune on this record but as a non-musician/studio nerd I gotta say it’s not that detectable to an untutored ear – and with strong cuts like Sonata Cósmica, Veterans of Disaster and Outer Space Connection the band does at least manage to draw a line of connection back to the classic era of Agent Steel.

• 1Passage to Afron-V2:15
• 2Crypts of Galactic Damnation4:11
• 3No Other Godz4:36
• 4Trespassers4:00
• 5The Devil’s Greatest Trick4:15
• 6Sonata Cósmica4:31
• 7Veterans of Disaster4:47
• 8Carousel of Vagrant Souls3:25
• 9The Incident3:05
• 10Outer Space Connection3:02
• 11Entrance to Afron-V2:26
• Total length: 40:33