Time Signature
Run for yesterday...
Genre: traditional heavy metal
Released in 1984, this is as authentic 80s metal as it gets. The album sees re-release this year on Pure Steel so younger generations of metal heads can feast their eyes on its charmingly ugly cover art and, more importantly, take in the music on the album.
And this is not just bona fide 80s metal. It is awesome bona fide 80s metal. The compositions on the album contain all that was good about 80s metal before glam metal took over, such as soaring vocals, booming drums, a driving bass, guitar solo trade-offs and strong guitar riffs. Not surprisingly, there is somewhat of an influence from the likes of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden on this album, but Exxplorer can hold their own, and some of the songs are even a bit ahead of their time, featuring a couple of progressive element every now and then.
The album is naturally characterized by the imperfections that you can expect on an obscure 1980s metal album, but, ignoring those (or maybe even embracing those), this is a really brilliant album, and fans of traditional metal should definitely get a hold on it.