There are many reasons for leaving aside albums that are buried under the sands of time. And I can tell you that the strongest of all is very simple to understand: if you didn't have the success back then, why in the blazes can someone think that 20, 30 years from its time, an album can have success? There are exceptions to this thought (it's not a rule), and I can tell you that BLACK ALICE, from Australia (Perth, the same city from AC/DC), was a good name, as this reissue for "Endangered Species" is here to prove.

Highly influenced by JUDAS PRIEST and ACCEPT, their music bears a great amount of untamed energy, and they were able to build some excellent melodies. Ok, their musical formula is the very same of countless bands of those same years, but they could have being a success if they had better conditions (and distribution for the album on Europe), because this album is from 1983, a time when Metal was just crawling up from the depths of the underground. And let me tell you: these guys really know how to make some excellent choruses and harmonic structures. But this album has a good sound quality if we think in terms of the 80's. Today, it could have being remastered, but it wasn't done in that way. I don't know if it was done in this way to preserve the feeling (for those boring fans that want "real" sound, as they knew about what they are talking), but the album deserves better sound improvements on a future reissue, because it's raw in a way it's not needed. It's not incomprehensible, but it could be way better.

When the music starts to play, we have a surprise, because songs as "No Warning" with its simple melodies, the Hard Rock energy shown on "Rat Catchers Eyes", the catching guitar riffs and arrangements on "Hell Has No Fury", the slow rhythm of "In The Hall of the Ancient Kings", the aggressive melodies that are presented on "Roll the Dice", and the heavy weight shown on "Blade of Slaughter" are proof of a very good name that deserved better luck, but it wasn't the case. And there are three bonus tracks: "Hellhouse", "Man of Metal", and "Knightmare", all of them as good as the ones I wrote about above.

"Endangered Species" is really a good album, but I hope that if there's a plan for a reissue for "Sons of Steel" (the band's second album), the label can do a remastering.