voila_la_scorie During my recent quest to discover more recent (younger) Canadian metal bands, I discovered among scores of bands I had never heard of this power trio from Toronto. I enjoyed a couple of their videos and then found their latest album, “New Gods” mentioned on a web site featuring new releases by Canadian metal bands. Intrigued by the marine gastropod in the album cover and puzzled over how it related to the album titled, I went ahead and ordered it.

Cauldron is a classic heavy metal band. Listening to this album, I am mostly reminded of Dokken at their heyday in the mid-eighties. Think “Tooth and Nail” and “Back for the Attack”. One review I read also mentioned “Blackout” by Scorpions but I don’t hear any Scorpions influence here, and I had the first ten albums on cassette back in the eighties. Rather I am reminded of Keel’s debut album, and also the first two Coney Hatch albums, though Cauldron’s sound is more mid-eighties than early.

It might be tempting to scoff at a young band for being retro and not bringing anything new to the scene, but what I hear on this album is a band playing exactly what they love. I heard Jason Decay (b/v) say in an interview that they are music fans first and don’t think about what style of metal they play. They play what they love to listen to. One of their older videos frequently shows whom they admire with posters, photos, and albums by Exciter, Rush, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Anvil, W.A.S.P., Dio-era Black Sabbath and others blatantly exhibited. For one who was a teen in the eighties and who owned hundreds of metal cassettes before the decade was over, Cauldron’s “New Gods” feels as natural as anything to listen to.

A solid album from top to bottom, there are a few tracks to mention. The opening track, “Prisoner of the Past” sets the tone perfectly for the album. If you like this song, you won’t be disappointed with the rest of the album because most of the tracks are in this style. “Save the Truth/Syracuse” gets a mention because, while “Save the Truth” is like most of the album (a very good song yet again!), “Syracuse” is a guitar instrumental of the same ilk as Black Sabbah’s “E5150” or “The Dark”. It’s dark and eerie and pretty cool. “Drown” begins like much of the album’s songs but it does break into speedier, more intense parts and that adds something a little extra to the album, I think.

“Together as None” is just the kind of break an album like this either needs or absolutely doesn’t, depending on your point of view. My favourite Black n Blue album has always been “Without Love” and this song is exactly that kind of heavy but beautifully melodic song that you can hear on “Without Love” or even on albums by TNT, just without the soaring vocals. I think it’s great to hear a modern band create a new song like the kind I often enjoyed hearing in the eighties. A power ballad? Yes, I guess so. But not like “Heaven” or “Every Rose Has Its Thorns”. Just heavy and melodic.

Finally, the album includes an instrumental played on clean electric and acoustic guitar with simple bass or is it low piano notes? No percussion. It sounds yet again very typical of some eighties albums and yet again executed so naturally that I don’t feel “retro!” but instead just comfortable and pleased to hear it.

I have no criticisms about this album. It simply sounds great from start to finish. The band seem perfectly at home with their song-writing and their style. I can easily see a couple more albums in my collection.