I’m a child of the maelstrom that was 80s metal. I was learning what I enjoyed musically during the embryonic days of MTV, and in those early years that channel force-fed me a steady diet of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Def Leppard videos. The 80s metal sound is encoded into my DNA and if you hit me hard enough, old fanzine ink leaks out. This makes me the demographic for what Phoenix Arizona’s Show N Tell are selling on their The Ritual Has Begun debut. This is 100% unabashedly retro metal with a carbon date of 1982-83, when American metal acts were taking the NWoBHM sound and speeding it up. Their style is like a hodge-podge of party rock, speed, and hair metal and it’s as infectious as a beer-borne Chlamydia. Good times are promised and delivered by the sudsy bucketful, and Steel is here for it. But in the middle of this rowdy toga party, just as I hoist the largest beer mug ever known to mankind, trouble starts banging on the door.
As soon as opener “Rip N Tear” takes flight and begins to rip and tear, you know this is going to a be wild, woolly album full of throwback excess and overkill. The guitars churn, the drums pound away with reckless abandon, and everything feels electric and alive. And then David Rodriguez crashes the party to start singing, screaming, and caterwauling. The man has a ton of energy and he totally goes for it, trying to recapture that 80s sound as Enforcer and Skull Fist have in recent years. But Enforcer have the good fortune of being fronted by Olof Wikstrand, while Show N Tell have a frontman with considerably less control and natural singing ability. Rodriguez can hit the upper range hard, but I’m not sure he hits many/any notes or keys along the way, frequently wandering off the music sheet entirely. And yet the songs and the music are so spot-on, these egregious vocal misadventures almost don’t matter. “Run to the Light” is so much damn fun, Richard Nixon or Gilbert Gottfried could sing on it and I’d still dig it. Same for “Night Stalker,” which is so 80s that it sucks some of my household belongings into a space/time rupture. Yes, Mr. Rodriguez can make these songs hurt in bad ways as they charm in good ways, but Bittersweet is a food group, right?
There’s a song on here simply titled “Heavy Metal” and it’s so much fucking fun it will make you smile, laugh, and punch your friend in the ear. It’s so anthemic, dumb, and embarrassing, but you know what? Who the fuck cares? It’s like Saxon turned to 15 with Lizzy Borden on vocals and I’m going to play this until my someday nursing home finds a way to unplug every device I smuggle into that urine-soaked hellhole. Also highly entertaining is “I’m Alive” where Mr. Rodriguez screams loud enough for the Klingon Empire to lock onto him and fire a Shut Up torpedo. Sure, not every song is spun gold even without the “talents” of the vocalist interfering. “All Alone Tonight” has a smoldering mood but fails at being a rough-edged power ballad ever so slightly, and closer, “The Second Death” is too long, despite some tasty Crimson Glory-esque fire in its makeup. There are also some production issues, with songs like the title track and “All Alone Tonight” moving the vocals further back in the mix, like the album was recorded in several different studios. Troubles aside, at just shy of 42 minutes, The Ritual Has Begun is a brisk time heist with hooky writing and slick musicianship.
Daniel Dobbs and David Rodriguez fill the album with pure 80s guitar glory as speedy riffs and hard rock ideas share time. The guitar work is the star here and it reeks of 80s nostalgia. The writing is often very good and there are several songs I like a lot. Now we come back to the vocals. Mr. Rodriguez delivers the high-pitch pyrotechnics that were so common to 80s metal, and he has an impressive range, roughly channeling both Olof Wikstrand and Skull Fist’s Zach Slaughter.1 However, his actual singing is often badly off-key, and when the tin ear of Lord Steel notices, you’re really off the map. His upper-range wailing can also become irritating when he overdoes it, which is always. He’s somehow charming nonetheless, and the guy could be a good frontman with some training and a tranq dart or six. For now though, he’s a loose cannon playing with nitroglycerine and lighter fluid.
I’ve struggled to score this one fairly. The songs speak to me and I love the sound and the energy. Take away the vocal missteps and this would be a mainstay in the House ov Steel for many a month, but the negatives shoot it in the foot, ass, and chestal region. I think Show N Tell have real potential. They just need to get Mr. Rodriguez some tutoring time. Invest for success and then show and tell again. I’ll listen.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: No Remorse
Websites: show-n-tell.band | facebook.com/officialshowNtell
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2024
