For some it is important the way a band classifies themselves, so we’ll stick with that for now and say Heretic is a heavy or classic metal band. Whatever they label themselves, Heretic tends to make me headbang! This Los Angeles based band that’s been around since the Early 80s has released their most recent album entitled A Game You Cannot Win.This 12 track, 10 song album is their 3rd full length album following Breaking Point in 1988 and A Time of Crisis in 2012. Heretic is a band that does a certain style of music and they do it well. You won’t see neo-maxi zoom dweebies liking this album as it’s way too primal. There’s musicianship and instrumental talent, but A Game You Cannot Win is more attrition and melee than artistry, which means I am giving it an enthusiastic two thumbs up!
This album is chalk full of what I would agreeably call classic power/thrash metal. Julian Mendez, the original singer, returns again after fronting on their 2012 release and continues to bring a guttural energy to his vocals that allows any respectable metal head to get a slipped disc with proper head-banging.
Original guitarist Brian Korban and new addition Stuart Fujinami bring the riffs. A steady stew of hard, driven rhythms, laced with fast and furious leads, the songs display what this reviewer would call vintage metal. Angelo Espino provides the steady bass soul that is often required, but more often unnoticed by many fans of metal. He matches the guitarists lick for lick when required and then loudly takes a back seat when the Peppery solos come into play.
Then returning drummer Ignazio Iggy Coppola sets the tone and speed for all to enjoy. Having recently started learning the drums, I listen to this aspect of the music more and more and I enjoy the power with which Coppola guides the band. At times on display, and again at other times often overlooked as an integral part of the music.
There are 10 tracks on this album with an intro and outro. As is often the case, the tone is set right from the start with the first musical track “This World Called Hell.” Fast and furious I call this a “grab your balls and hold on track”. Much of this album fits that description with tracks like “Demonized” and “Relentless“. And then there are other songs not so speedy where they tend to pound out the rhythm in slow pulsating marches like “Broken Hero“, “Annihilate“, and “Before The Fall“. There are also songs that appear to be Heretic’s version of some sort of ballad on steroids, and I use that term dangerously loosely, like “Master At Her Game“. Many of the songs off A Game You Cannot Win run the gamut of all three styles I notice on this album. Which is okay with me, as long as they bring that classic head-bangin, ball-grabbin metal that drives “intelligencia metal” crazy!
If there’s one thing I would change about the Heretic album, it would be a vague thing I noticed in the vocals. It’s not that the vocals are bad, it’s just that I didn’t feel they utilized Mendez’s strengths the way they could. At times his “normal singing” seems forced and possibly too passionate. Mendez has a voice that could rake the skin off a buffalo’s butt, but he spends perhaps a quarter of the album trying to sound like a male version of a female symphonic metal singer; and really what he is, is a ball grabbing, jack hammering, heavy metal, hardcore, scream until your skin starts to burn, power metal singer. So don’t get me wrong - Mendez is great - but sometimes he seems out of character with his voice. It would be like Floor Jansen trying to sing AC/DC. Here’s hoping on the next Heretic album it’s a “let Julian be Julian” situation, because when he’s doing what his voice was born to do, there is mandatory head-banging!
Heretic’s latest release A Game You Cannot Win is a moshing contest you can win, if you employ it like the weapon it is. I give it 8.5 out of 10 and say, buy it, listen to it, and then get the necessary neck surgery following.