Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 01:01 PM by Giorgos Tsekas
Genre: Heavy Metal
Country: Finland
Label: AFM Records
Year: 2017
One of the biggest lies you can hear in this life is this saying that it is trying to tell us that “The ones who are worth it, get recognized”. One of the biggest verifications of my claim is the Finnish Oz. Founded in 1977 in a small and unknown city called Nakkila, they released a series of good and respectable records until 1991 when they disbanded for the first time, having as a crown in their discography their legendary debut Fire In The Brain from 1983 that contains the unsurpassed hymn Turn The Cross Upside Down (The EP from 1984 has to be re-released to be purchased by the metal masses!!!). What if they moved directly to Stockholm, it wasn’t meant for them to obtain fame equal of their albums’ worth, which, and we shouldn’t hide away from that fact, were subpar to the first record and in general were uneven, although always noteworthy. Their reunion in 2010 with 3 members of their original line up bore the very good Burning Leather (2011) mostly because of Jay C. Blade (Jukka Homi is his real name, that he changed in to Jukka Lewis) who was their basic songwriter, but also because the founder/soul of the band, drummer Mark Ruffneck (Pekka Mark his real name) and the vocalist Ape De Martini (Tapani Hämäläinen his birth name) didn’t hold back into hardening their sound – making it more modern – without cutting down in quality and their principles. As of now the only original member is Mark Ruffneck. That didn’t disappoint him of course and with 4 new members (Peppi Peltola – bass, vocals, Juzzy Kangas – guitars, vocals, Johnny Cross – guitars, vocals and Vince Koivula – lead vocals) since he substituted Costello Hautamäki and Markku Petander from the Burning Leather line up, he created another praiseworthy album. The new singer Vince Kojvula has to be highlighted since his case reminds the one with Accept and Mark Tornillo. Different voice, same approach, similar tone. And mostly this fresh air of rejuvenation. We are not talking about another Blood Of The Nations, but the work in guitars and the songs are excellent like in ‘Drag You To Hell, ‘The Witch’, ‘Heart Of The Beast’ (with the very much melodic and catchy riff) and ‘Demonized’ making this album very much decent and a possible purchase, even the bonus track ‘Midnight Screams’ has a lot to offer.
4/6
