When the Wheels Start

Chariots Overdrive is an old-school act that originally hailed from China before somehow ending up in Atlanta, Georgia over here in the states. Might be due to their obvious love for American acts like Manilla Road and old Savatage, as these are the cornerstones of their songs on their debut demo as they try to mix epic stylings with ballsy energy. I'll say they got the riffs and leads for it, and the vocals are charmingly rough and gruff enough to get past their obvious limitations, but the songwriting is lacking and doesn't really build up much excitement before throwing out a cool solo and stopping instead of resolving anything. There are only a couple of songs on here, and both suffer the same problem of having cool riffs and solid vocal lines that just don't seem to lead anywhere before it ends. There's obvious potential going on here, and the band has all the pieces they need to make pounding, epic music, they just need to figure out what to do with them.