A small advisement before stepping forward, don't take the next hypothetical question seriously. Have you ever had the feeling of being too distant from everyone? Perhaps maybe you were a source of ridicule or even dead to the entire world? Whether if you were or weren't a subject of mockery or social abandonment, I hope you weren't by the way, you just have to listen to the incoming release by the veteran US Power / Thrash Metal killers of MELIAH RAGE. This past decade, which presented four studio albums, MELIAH RAGE showed their might with rather interesting releases that combined old school US aggression while not letting go of the melodic nature of NWOBHM that served them so well in the 80s. Moreover, their return with the original vocalist Mike Munro on their last album "Masquerade", back in 2009, shaped their image as more Bay Area styled thrashers than their older known type and the result was decent.

With the return of Paul Souza to the helm of the vocals last year, and with the proceedings towards the new album, it seemed that MELIAH RAGE missed their earlier late 80s / early 90s period and went on to pursue the same old musical direction. As a strong METAL CHURCH fan, when I first got to know the older albums of MELIAH RAGE, I knew exactly why I came to like them so much. Forging old US Power Metal, that to me is very different than the European version of it, with spikes of NWOBHM inspired Thrash Metal, is one of the truest mixtures in Metal. "Dead To The World", released via the band's new label, Metal On Metal Records, answered to that same criteria. Be sure that being enlisted to the METAL CHURCH red zone wasn't the only reason I liked what I heard around here.

"Dead To The World", besides being a sort of a comeback to the band's older albums as "Kill To Survive" and "Solitary Solitude", seemed to be even more intelligent and intriguing than what the band did in their last several albums. The quest for being strong and powerful as the younger groups of the same nature, not that there are too much of the same kind, here and there was diminished in favour to forming an impressive shell of melodies, added by harmonies, both by the twin guitars and bass that accompanied almost every riff. Furthermore, Sousa's vocal rhythms sounded a bit more melodic than before, even with a few Hetfield like reprises, while being rather different than Munro's pattern and style of singing that was much more bounded to being aggressive and less to the melodic nature.

In order to set your thought pattern to what has been on "Dead To The World" I can provide you my favourite "Where Nothing Ever Grows". That same track had that old METALLICA edge along with a few old METAL CHURCH combustions of crude attitude that didn't settle for less. In a way this song might sound like an old Thrash Metal song, yet, it had a few sections that lowered its roughness and tended to the harmonious side. If you are still not convinced, "Valley Of The Shadowless Souls", "Never For Me", "Up In Flames" and "Time Won't Let Me Breath" will surely clarify the picture for you. Those four tracks were also impressive and presented a higher sense towards melodic verses and chopping harmonies of steel.

I liked "Dead To The World", it was a true old school US Metal gathering. MELIAH RAGE weren't afraid to set up to show their older selves to the rest of the world and their fans. Mike Munro surely didn't cause the band to lower its standards, however, with the comeback of Paul Souza to the line-up and with the slight changing in the composing pattern of the folks behind the curtain, the final result of "Dead To The World" illustrated something that was missed.