The Sybling EP is Metal music's Holy Grail for record collectors worldwide, and that's no fresh news for old-school metalheads. The 80s US Metal band, featuring none other than Mike Soliz on vocals (OBLIVION KNIGHT, WATCHTOWER, ASSALANT), is recently back in the metallic map by setting to appear at April 2009's Keep It True XII festival (Germany) while hot is their new release herein reviewed, aptly called Released.
MILITIA was quite active in the second part of the 80s decade. Formed in 1984, they found Mike Soliz through WATCHTOWER's Jason McMaster and it was a matter of time for the American Texas to get impressed by Soliz's ultra-high singing. Performing live with bands like WATCHTOWER, EXCITER, SLAYER, NASTY SAVAGE, King Diamond and METAL CHURCH it was soon for MILITIA to release their first effort, the Regiments Of Death demo. In late 1985 the The Sybling EP was out; self-financed, a now rare-as-hell 12 vinyl cut in not more than 100 copies. With the Texas-based quintet not inking deal with a proper label (thus, calling it quits in 1986), these 100 copies is (anymore) everything ever pressed officially (German bootlegs appeared later, though). Expect to pay no less than 2,000-3,000$ if ever facing an original copy for sale.
To the point: Released is nothing more or less than a compilation of the MILITIA deeds back then. The first three tracks are from the Regiments Of Death demo, the next three ones are from the The Sybling EP, then follows a pair from the No Submission demo (1986), Thrash To Destroy and Onslaught date back to the 1984 early days of MILITIA (the first one having rhythm guitar, bass and drums recorded back then with another rhythm guitar track, a solo and the vocals filling up recently in 2008); the last couple of tracks were recorded live at the Ritz Theater in 1986.
In a perfect world - and for fans of high-pitched Metal voices - Soliz would be recognized as a god of wrath, way more than a dozen of now established names. A real siren, with immaculate melody and epos in his throat, too, Soliz raises the song's value to another level by any means (if the name Ski tells you something, think in similar). The music itself, in terms of songwriting, refers to a Power/Speed/Thrash amalgam of American Metal with enough variety in parts and tempos while it features an astonishing guitar work (it's that case when Americans really played Metal riffs and leads). The production (in average) shall be out of the question for metalheads recently conducted to the metallic majesty, while even for traditional metalunatics things are kinda hectic/amateur, still not omitting that much from MILITIA's splendor.
In case you're digging stuff like WATCHTOWER, HADES, S.A. SLAYER or SAVAGE GRACE, Released is a good change to grab a piece of retrospective history regarding this (then) hopeful Metal band. MILITIA is added to the endless list of bands willing to convince with their forceful Metal assault but - eventually - end up being victims of circumstance. Thumbs up to the Rockadrome label for bringing forth such a remarkable CD.