It's so difficult to think about Brazil beyond Football, Samba, SEPULTURA, and beaches. I often wonder how little I know about the world, and more so about bands from other countries - no matter how much I may think otherwise sometimes. So here we've got an old school Traditional Heavy Metal band called HELL GUN from Sao Jose, Brazil, who released their debut record of 22 min EP "Southern Hell" earlier this year.

With most of the band's content and promotional stuff on social media happening in Portugal, I found it difficult to get more of the band, although to save the day for me, the lyrics of the band itself is in English. So the EP starts with one of the better songs of the record in "Seven Prisioners". The song is a mid-tempo Heavy Metal song, with IRON MAIDEN-ish lyrics, and occasional sharp tasty solos. I wonder if it was deliberate of the vocalist and only me who feels this way, but Matheus Luciano's vocals in "Singers Of The Night" reminded me a lot of Dave Mustain! And also the band tries too hard to bring in the variations, first the elongated drum solo, then the guitar solo, only remaining thing was a vocal solo, ha-ha!

Next the lads put a cover of Running Wild's "Soldiers Of Hell", which has some excellent guitar riffs and solos making it a perfect song for the band's live shows, and also it reminded me of ACCEPT's "Flash Rockin' Man" from their 1982 "Restless and Wild" album. The lads take a much heavier and thicker route with the title track "Southern Hell", with a crazy vocals even though sometimes I felt Matheus was trying harder than required. But in any case, the song does really kick some ass, and is sure to be a live hit. I am glad the band didn't do an 8 minuter to end the record and struck with a song under 6 minutes in "Wolfman", which keeps the record's tempo and works great with the mood and is a great way to finish of the record

With just about 22 minutes on offer here and HELL GUN getting most of the things right here, it's safe to say that the lads have started on the right note, including a decent production. As always with new bands, I just hope the band doesn't take too long to release successive records, and also not try to experiment more than they can handle!