Something I've seen a lot in the world of music since becoming a journalist is the fusions of various genres from different bands. Some have worked well, some have sounded awful and others have the potential to be great but just need some tweaks to be good. So what do you get when you take something as bonkers as Heavy Metal and combine it with the old-school Punk music genre? That's an interesting combination so I'm here to see if it works, has the potential to be good or is a total disaster.

The band I am concentrating on in this review is called ZEX who are a Heavy Metal/Punk quintet from Ontario, Ottawa in the USA. Originally released in 2013 independently, their debut CD, entitled "Fight For Yourself" was picked up by the Magic Bullet Records label for a re-release last year in 2014 and I'm here to find out if the fusion of Heavy Metal and Punk can work with a band like this or not.

As mentioned at the start of this review, I have seen a mixture of various musical genres being fused together for an album and there have been some that impressed me, some which made me think that it had potential given a few bells and whistles and some that have hurt my ears with how bad or mediocre the performance was. So which category do ZEX fall into? I hate to say this but they fall into the third category of making my ears hurt with how bad or mediocre the performance is.

I think the albums biggest weakness is the production which sounds very cheap, old school and basic and yes I get that ZEX wanted it to sound like it came from the 70's or 80's which were the glory days of Punk music but for an album that was released here in the 21st century, this type of production is completely unacceptable as it sounds okay but not great. There are moments where the music does sound a bit better than other songs on this album but overall, it's not that great. The performance from the music is a bit mediocre as yes it may be energetic and fun when played live but it's a no go for a studio album. The vocals are also a bit of a let-down as well as they only add to this albums many problems.

Bottom line, for an album that was released in the 21st century, the average production and the mediocre performances make me glad that the songs on this album are very short as if they were any longer, my ears would be hurting even more as I really did not enjoy listening to this one bit as let's face it, there are punk bands who sounded better on their debut albums. That's all I have to say on this for now so I'll leave it there.