SIMPLE LIES has been rocking the Italian Metal scene for nearly 10 years now; their newest album "Let it Kill" was released early in September of 2015. The band is from Bologna, Italy; I would make a joke about that, but the album isn't that bad, so I'll let you make the connection yourself. It sort of sounds like they made "Let it Kill" by dragging the album through as much 80's Glam and Hair-Metal as possible and seeing whatever sticks. Their sound is right out of the "But Rock" era like many other Italian Metal bands I have heard. Is it just the style over there? Are Scylla and Charybdis attacking any ships carrying music with a more relevant sound? We may never know. While I really don't like the 80's Metal influence, I can tolerate them more than the vocals. The vocals are high-pitched and the singer has good range, but not in a good JUDAS PRIEST sort of way, more like your drunken friend singing JUDAS PRIEST, in a karaoke sort of way. My brain just mushes many of the tracks together as one clump of cheesy music, but there are a couple of tracks in particular that stand out to me.

The second track on the album, and probably the catchiest is "A-Men". The track is a silly Catholic inspired song about a super-powered priest fighting the devil. I mostly like it because it contains the comedic lyrical gem "He's a priest, a super-hero, listen Satan, you're a zero!" It's like something from a youth-group skit. The music video for the track is worth watching if you can get past the ear-grating vocals. It's got sexy nuns, fast cars, a Satan character that could bench-press your car and party-Jesus. If that's not a recipe for a good time, I don't know what is. The track "Symmetry of Love" is actually not bad for a cheesy love-ballad. Unlike most ballads it starts out with a heavy, hard sound that borders on aggressive, but evens out through the chorus. I don't even mind the vocals on the track; they seem to be leveled out well and the vocalist doesn't seem to be straining as hard as other songs.

All together, "Let it Kill" is a standard Radio-Rock album with a really confusing name, it's put together well and sounds decent. But between the musical style and those irritating vocals it really does nothing for me, the album just comes across as cheesy but maybe that's what SIMPLE LIES is all about. They are just couple Italian guys who just want to make Rock music and have some fun, and there is nothing wrong with that.<