MORTICIAN hail from the mythical gold era for heavy metal: the 1980s. They bring plenty of old-school riffs and attitude with their new release, "Shout For Heavy Metal"!

Opening up with "Shout For Heavy Metal" the band launches into some great guitar work with some really nice harmonies and a nice tight rhythm section, that has a good punch to it with deep bass supporting some good sounding drums. The vocals are a bit rougher than I was expecting but does have that old school vibe, feeling a combination of Dave Mustaine and Lemmy. It's an interesting approach and there are some cool backing vocals in the chorus here.

"Eagle Spy" has a really cool main riff, with a nice powerful chorus too, with real retro sound to it (though I must repeat these guys aren't a "retro" band, they are actually from the era in question!) There is also a good sense of flow throughout the song.

The band storms through 9 tracks of heavy metal madness, with tracks like "Rock Power" with a bit of an old school Dio vibe in a track where the vocals are probably at their best, with a bit more snarl to them yet also a bit more melodic content too. "Black Eyes" is also a pretty cool track, with some interesting use of chords that build tension nicely, with a really solid performance from the rhythm section yet again, making for a really tight overall sound!

The album closes on "Wrong Way", which is an interesting track with a quite different vocal approach. The song has some nice riffs and good sense of grooves and dynamics. This one closes the album with something a little different the fare of the rest of the record

The production is pretty good here, with a really good sounding rhythm section and some nice guitars throughout. The vocals have been recorded well but lack consistency in places.

Overall, this is quite a solid release, with a good sense of proper heavy metal attitude, done the way I feel it ought to be really.