CYCLONE TEMPLE — My Friend Lonely (review)

CYCLONE TEMPLE — My Friend Lonely album cover Album · 1994 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"My Friend Lonely" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US thrash metal act Cyclone Temple. The album was released through Monsterdisc in 1994. After Znöwhite broke up, several of the members from that band formed Cyclone Temple in 1989. Cyclone Temple released their debut full-length studio album "I Hate Therefore I Am" in 1991 and the "Building Errors in the Machine" EP in 1993. The latter with a new singer. "My Friend Lonely" again sees the addition of a new vocalist in Sonny DeLuca. The third vocalist in four years. "My Friend Lonely" would be the band´s last release before they disbanded later in 1994.

Stylistically the music on the album is melodic thrash metal with a lead vocalist who both delivers raw staccato type thrash metal vocals and a more melodic clean vocal type. Sonny DeLuca has a rather distinct sounding voice and delivery, and while he has a lot of power behind his delivery, his singing style may be a bit of an aquired taste. During the quiet/acoustic parts of the album, he does sound a bit nasal odd. To my ears his vocals work best when they are most rough like they are on tracks like "Hate Makes Hate" and "Killing Floor". The instrumental part of the album is delivered with conviction and great skill.

The material on the 8 track, 43:27 minutes long album are relatively well written, but nothing out of the ordinary for the style. "Building Errors in the Machine (1993)" was a definite step down from the high quality of "I Hate Therefore I Am (1991)" and unfortunately Cyclone Temple don´t recover any lost ground on "My Friend Lonely". It´s a decent melodic thrash metal album, but never extraordinary. The sound production is not the strongest either, and especially the drums feature a sound which lack the important organic element.

So upon conclusion it´s not hard to understand why Cyclone Temple didn´t achieve the success they aimed for. "I Hate Therefore I Am (1991)" came a little too late in the game to receive more than a passing interest from metal listeners (thrash metal was in decline in 1991), and as the band´s next two releases were both of a much weaker quality than the debut album, Cyclone Temple just weren´t able to built a fanbase to support them though the thrash metal difficult 90s. "My Friend Lonely" is not as such a bad quality release, it´s just pretty standard for the genre and a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.
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