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Heavy Justice: Apocalyze
Heavy Justice: Apocalyze
Heavy/Thrash Metal
3.5/5.0
Website
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Unsigned / Self-released
by Craig Hartranft, 15.02.2014
There's little to be known about Heavy Justice, as they seem to have little to say about themselves. They're from California, beginning in 2000, then disappeared, only to reemerge in 2010. Their metal is hybrid of traditional heavy, thrash, and maybe some speed metal, with some modern overtones, mostly from bassist Neil Neilio Moutrey sometimes raw, nearly hardcore, seemingly experimental vocals.
Heavy Justice: in the evening.
To start, you get some basic modern thrash with the title track and Iron Hand, with some flashy leads and Moutrey's snarling vocals. Then with When We Were Gods and I'm Home, things take a different turn. Both sound like traditional heavy metal, even an homage to or mash up of Metallica and Iron Maiden in some strange sense, and both are long, almost oppressively so. The former offers tag team vocals with a female vocalist with Moutrey' zombie vocals. While the song trudges along, it has some terrific drumming. The latter song has some the mildest moments on the album with the vocals going in the complete opposite direction of the first three. It's sounds like three people vying with each other in this weird sing-songy style.
Cry Havoc gets you back to the speed/thrash metal, with another lightning solo at the end. Then from Golddigger to the end Heavy Justice drops you into more traditional metal, keeping it heavy, sometimes quickening the pace, but more melodic and Moutrey getting over his snarling harshness. The guitar solos are pretty awesome too. The album rounds out with speed/thrash of Fuel to the Fire, giving you again that pleasant feeling that the Big Four have left their impression on this band.
My conclusion, after several spins, remained the same. The best part of Apocalyze, for me, was the last four songs of the album, then the first two songs, and then passing on the strangeness of When We Were Gods and I'm Home. My verdict is still out on the vocals. Otherwise, it's a good, if not interesting, start for Heavy Justice.
Heavy Justice - "APOCALYZE" - Official Music Video
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In Short
Heavy Justice offers the listener a hybrid mix of metal styles, from traditional to speed to thrash metal, for some interesting, sometimes perplexing, results.
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