North Carolina's ALIAS MANGLER struck a chord in my heart, not because they're a hidden jewel in a sea of mediocrity, they aren't, but because like my beloved Hurricane Jane who I played with for a year before my accident, they too won their local Battle of the Bands. Unlike us (we got a gig at the local watering hole for winning ours) they got studio time. This album was the result. From the title track "Bite the Metal" it becomes obvious that they had no studio experience and cranked the reverb on everything except the bass and added gobs of chorus to the guitars to try and make up for being a one guitar band. "We Come to Rock" begins with with the icon 80's sound of a gated reverb snare (think drum solo in Phil Collins "In the Air Tonight") and it truly is not a good sound for metal IMHO.

You know, I think what's best is to not criticize the album but to explain what it truly is. A snapshot of an era when Metal entered puberty and was trying to find itself. The industry was going digital both live and in studio, the America's were torn between Glam and Thrash, and British metal ruled the world. For us small bands it was hard to decide which direction to go, and if you listen closely to this album, you can hear the struggle and birthing pains of many things we consider standard or even required in modern Metal music.

Overall it is forgettable and probably would have been if it wasn't for the 500 prints put out after the battle of the bands. Now I view it as an archaeological treasure to show not only how far we've come but to show that truly Metal is a creation of a bunch friends having a good time making music, so others can join in the fun, and because of that, is there really a "Bad" metall album?