Chinchilla
Madness
Metal Blade
Man, do I ever want to like this record. From the Bruce Dickinsonian vocals (courtesy of Thomas Laasch) in his rough-‘round-the-edges Samson days to the (un)intentional swipes at metal standards (chronologically, the riff referencing of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” in “Living on My Own,” the bass thump of Di’anno-era Maiden’s “Wrathchild” in “Where the Brave Belong,” and the, er, bagpipes of Blaze-era Maiden’s “The Clansman” in “Tears”) to the generally stunted air of it all, Chinchilla’s Madness has “blue collar” written all over it, arriving at a vaguely modern-power-metal/prehistoric-NWOBHM hybrid that could yet usher in a “we try harder” era•Uh, probably not. Coming to a budget bin near you.
Metal Blade, 2828 Cochran St., PMB 302, Simi Valley, CA 93065-2793; http://www.metalblade.com
