Agents of Mystification

Assassin's Blade is the brainchild of ex-Exciter vocalist Jacques Bélanger, who recruited a band full of quality Swedish musicians and formed this band a few years ago, with the avowed purpose of playing old-school Traditional Metal. This is obviously a callback to sounds like classic Riot or Attacker, with a kind of NWOBHM sound to the riffs and a US-Metal sensibility to the songwriting. This kind of thing is really much more demanding than it sounds, because there are no gimmicks to hide behind, you just have to have first-rate songs, and Assassin's Blade don't really have any of those. The guitar tone is good, and the riffs are okay, but they are unmemorable, and derivative of much better bands and albums. Bélanger's vocals are not that exciting, as he is just kind of there. He's not bad, and when he busts out a high-pitched wail he sounds much better, but overall his performance sounds unexciting. This is not a bad disc, but you won't really remember one thing about it.