We are living in an era that everything is happening fast and I think that most of us can't receive and hold all the information that is available. This thing stands for almost everything, from the news and technology to literature and music. With all that information, you won't be even close if you say that you know everything!

Same thing happens to me almost every day, when I come across bands that I never heard before. This project, BIRDS OF PREY is one of those. The project took form in 2006. Aaaand... that's about it! The band, as far as I know, never played live and won't play as far as the near future concerned due to geographical difficulties included. It would be nice to see them live somewhere in the future, but until then, let us see what their third full-length album, The Hell Preacher, has to say.

The album, if my sources are correct (ha ha), is a concept one. In first person we are following the story of a person from his childhood of rape and abuse sending him to prison with more rape and abuse. Then we find him in a religious conversion that makes him lead a militaristic cult. He blinds all of his followers and starts killing everyone before destroying his own self and everything he had achieved. Well, I think that's the story more or less.

The album has a great opening, with the first two tracks putting you in the story. That doesn't mean that you can't listen to them separately if you leave the lyrics aside. Their southern death sludge Metal- well, it's the only way to describe it - is nicely played by members, former or not, from ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY, BEATEN BACK TO PURE, BARONESS, MUNICIPAL WASTE and more. The problem is that after those two songs you have tracks that are the ones that I call I-have-heard-that-before songs, something that is not bad if you play them with passion and not just to show that you can play them, and some fillers. There are songs here, though, showing that these guys still have it and that they can do even better. And from some compositions I heard from their previous albums after I got my hands into The Hell Preacher I think they definitely can write better stuff.

As a conclusion: not a bad album, not a hidden diamond either. Of course it has its moments like the first two tracks, Warriors of Mud...The Hellfighters and The Excavation, but the rest of the album lacks inspiration. Until next time lads, and since you - that you read my reviews - know that they start counting down from 9...