If you really don't know any of the musicians mentioned in the line up then you should stop reading this review or stop living anyway. We are talking about a legendary Heavy Metal voice, a drummer that sounds more like an octopus, a bassist that gave a whole new meaning to bass and great shredder. The most interesting about this band though is the way they adopted the name CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED...

Their name came from one of the responses to the prank calls that Christy and Sal Governale of the Howard Stern Show made to various Christian radio stations, where a host stated that he would pray for them, "saving their soul to be saved by God's grace...not in the devil's hell where you'd be put in your nails in the charred walls of the damned".

CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED is actually a project formed by drummer Richard Christy (DEATH, ICED EARTH, CONTROL DENIED etc) and was completed by his actual dream team, which means Tim "Ripper" Owens (JUDAS PRIEST, Yngwie Malmsteen, BEYOND FEAR), Steve Di Giorgio (almost every Metal band, hahaha) and Jason Suecof (CROTCHDUSTER, CAPHARNAUM).

This is nothing more than an all project, and as we know such projects either kill or fail miserably. CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED are exactly in the middle since this self titled debut album (I wonder if there is going to be a second one) is a mediocre Heavy Metal release, with some Thrash and Power Metal fragments. I am sorry but I am not going to take seriously an album that starts with blasts and ends up sounding like the not so successful albums ICED EARTH released with Owens. Despite the fact that this is like a dream band for me I was completely disappointed after listening to "Charred Walls Of The Damned", and neither the technical background of their Heavy Metal sound nor the fact that I am a huge fan of these guys makes this album sound better to me.

And let's not forget the fact that we are talking about musicians from whom the fans demand a high quality level. If it was a new band it would probably seem - slightly - better, but these guys are just one more average modern and aggressive may I add Heavy Metal band. I hope this project is just for fun and not for the sake of money...