Sometime ago, when I heard the new EXCITER, I was truly disappointed. It seemed to me that the band's sense of creativity was lost somewhere in the first years of the new millennium. In comparison to the degrading EXCITER, I give you the new Speed Metal craze from Italy, IRON JAWS and their debut release, "Louder Is Not Enough". Just to give you a few words of heads up before I spread the whole deal around, it will seem like the reincarnation of the old EXCITER, however, how close can you really get? I don't know if the members of IRON JAWS, probably huge fans of EXCITER, noticed that the efforts of the Canadian giants pretty much went asunder over the years when they started to play their stuff, because it seems that when they composed the tracks for this album they were listening to old EXCITER albums as "Heavy Metal Maniac", "Violence & Force" or "Long Live The Loud".

Why am I saying this? Maybe because that almost every track on this album sounded as if IRON JAWS tried to reshape the image of EXCITER as their own. Moreover, and apart from the band's beats and riffs, the vocals have a strong resemblance to the works of EXCITER's old Dan Beehler. From those two aspects, and from the overall spirit of things, I can infer that IRON JAWS are the new EXCITER, yet on its Italian version. Is it good or bad? That is a judgment to be made by each and everyone of you. From my end, I would be happy to see a new EXCITER coming back to their older selves; however, I would have preferred that the original Canadians would do that instead of another band.

The reason I am writing this is because I saw nothing special about IRON JAWS. Although they are old school, which I am a huge fan, and they performing the old wave of Speed Metal with expertise, they are playing material that is no different from someone else's tunes. Many bands out there share similarities between them, and that is a common phenomenon, nevertheless, how really close can you get? This is way beyond influence, its the same actual thing. I am sorry to say this but IRON JAWS, as they can be a great prospect in the resurrection of speed Metal and old school Metal in general, have no image of their own. Their music is OK, although repetitive most of the time when it comes to their simple riff-ages, and the musicians behind the scene are also great. All that was needed of those guys are to find their own way of creating Speed Metal and put a mark that would tell them from EXCITER, while still relying on their influences. "Louder Is Not Enough" could have been better if IRON JAWS would have been louder while doing through their own approach.

I can't really twist the band's album without giving a few words of encouragement. I am happy that IRON JAWS wrote tracks as "Fast And Loud", "Speed Violence", "Fall Under My Steel" and "It's Not Right", as they showed EXCITER the quality of Speed Metal and what they have to do in order to go back to their golden era of the 80's. In addition, the band did good performing the classic "Violence & Force". Even though the production of the album wasn't in a high quality (especially the mixing & mastering), "Louder Is Not Enough" can be considered as a reasonable release while living the band only with a potential to go on.