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DEE SNIDER
For The Love Of Metal

Napalm (2018)
Rating: 6/10

I remember back in the 80s when a metalhead friend of mine was forced to hide his Twisted Sister album Stay Hungry under his bed because the cover, depicting a heavily made-up Dee Snider clutching a meaty bone, offended his mum.

Those were the glory days of heavy metal and Snider, along with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Lizzy Borden, were dragging us kids by the scruff of our necks into a world of rebellion and drama; a realm which shocked not only parents but censorship groups and just about everyone who didn’t get it.

Just like Borden, Cooper and Osbourne, Mr Snider ploughs on, emerging from the shadows of shock rockers Twisted Sister and for the last 20 years has, albeit rather sporadically, dished up a handful of solid solo records, the last being 2016’s We Are The Ones.

I have to admit however being somewhat nervous about reviewing a record from a teenage hero, especially when I found out that Dee hadn’t written a single lyric or note for the album and that the team behind him were part of a glut of band’s I’ve despised; namely Hatebreed, Killswitch Engage, Lamb Of God and Disturbed. Sure, I get that many artists have to move with the times and seeing Snider all glammed up like 1985 would’ve been a cringe-worthy sight, and it’s no crime that other artists like Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta had come in to help and challenge Dee to make a contemporary rock record. But could it work?

Well, it’s not as if Snider’s last outing was an 80s nostalgia trip. This is not a guy who lives in the past and his music has kind of run in tandem and style with Alice Cooper’s evolution, only in less prolific fashion, and so with For The Love Of Metal we have a timely reminder of Dee Snider’s ability to drift and shift through the gears of the decades. So do not expect some time-travelling escapade back to shock rock fever.

Featuring contributions from Howard Jones (Light The Torch / ex-Killswitch Engage vocalist), Mark Morton (Lamb Of God guitarist), Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy / ex-The Agonist singer), Joel Grind and Nick Bellmore (Toxic Holocaust), and Charlie Bellmore (Kingdom Of Sorrow guitarist) we have a variety of talents which add certain positive and, of course, negative flavours to the melting pot, but thankfully it’s not the train-wreck of a modern mash-up I was expecting. Instead, Snider and team have churned out the sort of balls-to-the-wall, yet at times generic metallic accessibility that numerous metal acts such as, say, Overkill, have been coughing up since the late 90s – it’s crisp, clean, heavy and melodic.

Opener ‘Lies Are A Business’ wouldn’t seem out of place on, say, a Metal Church record. The track drives and rattles hard and one thing that immediately hits me is Snider’s tone. Forget those higher-end glam choruses and sleazed up croons, Dee is very much rumbling and snarling and his tone is pissed off, almost grey and humourless as his band of metallic brothers’ gallop in modern Iron Maiden-esque fashion. The layers of gloss are immediately apparent, but then again as another chugging riff comes it’s nothing too far away from what the likes of Alice and Ozzy have produced over the past two decades.

So For The Love Of Metal immediately sets its stall out as a polished opus of modern dynamics. The hard bass twang and pounding drum team open up the groove metal-cum-thrash belligerence of ‘Tomorrow’s No Concern’, which has Dee wading in the Testament zone such is its gargantuan riffage and menace. However, in spite of being aware of Snider’s forays over the last few albums, I’m still not sitting entirely comfortable with this project. Despite being delivered with passion and precision there’s something gloomy about the despicably one-dimensional and trite ‘I Am The Hurricane’; the sort of mournful nu-metal glint thrown at Kerrang! readers since the late 90s. Meanwhile, ‘American Made’ just feels like it should be accompanying a modern day American wrestler to the ring. And that’s where this album sits, although it knows full well and remains completely unashamed.

Elsewhere, ‘Roll Over You’ and ‘I’m Ready’ are generic and predictable modern chunks plying us with tidy yet bland thrash workouts, while ‘Become The Storm’ has that modern Judas Priest-style of drudgery. But it all just feels so dull, all too dampened by those outside influences, and that production of Jasta just means that the album rolls by without any sense of colour.

The title track, for all its fiery intensity, features some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard, citing numerous 80s album titles before that predictable vocal chant of the chorus. At the other end of the spectrum, however, we have ‘Dead Hearts (Love Thy Enemy)’. This is a wistful, stripped back jaunt featuring Alissa White-Gluz, which after its initial subtle strains unravels as another churning groove of predictability and building to another of those gruelling, migraine-inducing choruses; proof then that modern metal dynamics continue to baffle me in their grunge-induced dynamics.

‘Running Mazes’, just like every other track, is catchy in its riff although I still feel as though a Linkin Park chorus is just lurking around the corner. ‘Mask’ is another groove-based composition, glinting and glimmering with a strong melodic streak as Snider’s chops muscle their way through the rhythms, and yet in one fail swoop make sure that his once recognisable tones become a characterless croon.

‘The Hardest Way’ is another stern rocker; cold and pure steel. However, this is typical of numerous other cuts that sit awkwardly and certainly don’t benefit from featuring the artists already mentioned. So it’s only natural I’m disappointed, but also fully aware of what was coming.

Overall, For The Love Of Metal is a colourless experiment showcasing how little heavy metal has moved on since the late 90s, the sound contaminated by its production and no doubt aimed to those tepid festival mosh-pits swarming with kids who still think Hatebreed’s ‘Destroy Everything’ is wild and that Metallica pre-‘Enter Sandman’ were shit.

Considering the alleged love of metal on show here, Dee Snider and company’s latest outpouring is one big and bland bulldozer sure to make an impact on the download generation, but then again didn’t Snider once bemoan that love was for suckers?

Neil Arnold

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