{"id":20185,"date":"2012-05-24T05:08:17","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T10:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=20185"},"modified":"2013-02-05T16:02:40","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T21:02:40","slug":"malice-new-breed-of-godz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2012\/malice-new-breed-of-godz\/","title":{"rendered":"Malice | New Breed of Godz<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\nStaff Writer —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"It took a quarter of a century, but the metal world can finally witness the return of one of the American cult heavy metal scene\u2019s most beloved bands. Malice is back\u2026sort of. The \u201csort of\u201d qualifier is there for a couple of reasons, both of which take much of the joy out of the band\u2019s long-awaited return. The first reason is that of the lineup that gave us the classic albums License to Kill<\/em> and In the Beginning<\/em>, only guitarists Jay Reynolds and Mick Zane remain. The rest of the lineup is new, including Helstar vocalist James Rivera, who seems to be taking over Ripper Owens\u2019s role as the \u201cgo-to\u201d replacement metal singer. The second reason is that of the twelve songs on New Breed of Godz<\/em> (and they lost a point just for that title), only four are actual new songs. The rest are just re-recordings of older Malice songs with the new lineup. We\u2019re not off to a very good start here, are we?<\/p>\n

The problem Malice faces here is that while James Rivera is a fantastic singer and has one of metal\u2019s most recognizable voices, he also tends to dominate an album. In that respect, New Breed of Godz<\/em> ends up sounding like just another Helstar, Seven Witches or Vicious Rumors album. There\u2019s nothing here that really screams \u201cMalice,\u201d and that even includes the older songs. Speaking of which, if the best you can do with this lineup is four new songs, it\u2019s probably not worth releasing as a full-length album. The re-recordings are interesting at best, and a mistreatment at worst. The old adage \u201cif it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it\u201d comes to mind. As for the new songs \u2013 \u201cNew Breed of Godz,\u201d \u201cBranded,\u201d \u201cWinds of Death (Angel of Light)\u201d and \u201cSlipping Through the Cracks\u201d \u2013 they\u2019re all decent songs, but again, they seem more like Helstar songs than Malice songs.<\/p>\n

None of this is to say that the music on New Breed of Godz<\/em> is bad. It\u2019s not. The musicianship is good and James Rivera sounds great as always. If you can ignore the history here and focus on the songs there is a lot to like. It\u2019s just really hard to do that if you\u2019re a long-time Malice fan, especially with so few new songs to focus on.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a huge James Rivera fan or a very forgiving Malice fan, go ahead and give New Breed of Godz<\/em> a listen. Just don\u2019t expect a new \u201ctrue\u201d Malice album, because this definitely isn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n

Genre: Heavy Metal<\/p>\n

Band:
\nMark Behn (b)
\nPete Holmes (d)
\nJay Reynolds (g)
\nMick Zane (g)
\nJames Rivera (v)
\nRobert Cardenas (b)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tNew Breed of Godz
\n2.\tHell Rider
\n3.\tAgainst the Empire
\n4.\tBranded
\n5.\tSinister Double
\n6.\tCircle of Fire
\n7.\tStellar Masters
\n8.\tWinds of Death (Angel of Light)
\n9.\tAir Attack
\n10.\tChain Gang Woman
\n11.\tSlipping Through the Cracks
\n12.\tGodz of Thunder<\/p>\n

Label: SPV<\/p>\n

Website: www.malicemusic.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 6\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines Staff Writer — It took a quarter of a century, but the metal world can finally witness the return of one of the American cult heavy metal scene\u2019s most beloved bands. Malice […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6772],"tags":[2491,4068,1524],"class_list":{"0":"post-20185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-arcrvws2012","7":"tag-heavy-metal","8":"tag-malice","9":"tag-spv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}