Various Artists
Metal On Ice
Coalition Music/Warner Music Canada
Do you remember when heavy metal ruled? Canadian musician and writer Sean Kelly does and his new book “Metal on Ice: Tales from Canada’s Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Heroes” is a tribute to that era of rock history. Kelly interviewed numerous Canadian hard rock stars from the 80’s for the book and then went a step further by getting some of them to collaborate in a Canadian super-group project simply called Metal on Ice. The result is a hard-rocking fun album which celebrates the 80’s Canadian hard rock/metal scene. Metal on Ice consists of Brian Vollmer of Helix, Nick Walsh of Slik Toxik, Carl Dixon of Coney Hatch, Darby Mills of Headpins, Russ Dwarf of Killer Dwarfs and none other than the Canadian metal queen herself – Lee Aaron.
The band covers 6 classic songs by each of the collaborators with each singing on their own song, with the exception of Kick Axe’s “On The Road to Rock” which is sang by Nick Walsh of Slik Toxik. The songs are played to perfection; true to the originals. Not having known better, one couldn’t tell they were re-recorded aside from the fresh clean production and digital recording. Sean Kelly himself produced the EP and played guitar on all tracks. Along with bassists Daryl Gray and Victor Langen, and drummer Dave Langguth, Kelly recorded a helluva record; maintaining all of the raw energy, attitude and power of the original songs. Vollmer sounds as raspy as ever on Helix’s “Heavy Metal Love”, and Lee Aaron (who in the 90’s left hard rock to perform lounge and jazz) returns to level the place with her sexy bad-girl growl on “Metal Queen”. The others shine as well; everyone came to play for this party. No phoning it in. No compromises. The EP ends with a brand new title track “Metal on Ice” which everyone performs together with impressive results. The other tracks on the EP (all performed with excellence) are covers of the Headpins “Don’t It Make Ya”, Coney Hatch “Hey Operator” and Killer Dwarfs “Keep the Spirit Alive.”
Fans of hard rock and metal, old and young, will appreciate this shot of Canadian rawk adrenalin. Metal on Ice is available on iTunes or you can download it or purchase the CD through Amazon. There are rumours of a tour. You don’t want to miss that.
– Michael Filonienko
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