Heaven's Edge - Heaven's Edge (1990)

There were a lot of people in the metal world who felt that Heaven's Edge should have been massive and that their fire was quickly extinguished by the wet flannel known as grunge. Although I'm of the opinion that Nirvana and many of the dire grungeheads did indeed put a pay to metal in the early to mid '90s, I'm not sure if Heaven's Edge would have been huge, despite the fact this is a quality debut record. When I first about these Philly guys I thought they were gonna sound pretty weak, but I was wrong - this debut is a bolshy affair that has a considerable weight alongside a set of stomping anthems which may have seemed a little out of time. Think Crue's 'Dr Feelgood' for that distinctively crisp production and put together a set of big haired metal acts who never quite made the grade, but give it all a lethal injection of sonic guitars and bombastic drums and Heaven's Edge are the monster you'll come up with. If this had emerged around '86 then things may have been dfferent - if Heaven's Edge had surfed on the same wave as say, Skid Row, or Extreme, then they'd have got the kudos they deserved, but despite some rockin' reviews, this debut scarf waver fizzled out in the Seattle rain. Yes it's hair metal, but it's so huge in its sound and so damn talented, just sit back and be scorched by the guitar attack of Steven Parry and Reggie Wu. And there's those massive sounding drums from David Rath, flying high on a cosmic riser, and fronted by the immaculate Mark Evans, who, with puffed out chest took metal yells to new heights. It's not an album that's rough around the edges - far from it, some will hear a little Bon Jovi, especially in the vocals, whilst others may hear some Dokken fury in those chords, but it's the bands' ability to write a catchy hook that impresses most. 'Play Dirty', 'Skin To Skin', 'Bad Reputation', 'Is That All You Want ?' are all smoking tunes which sound fresh today, but would have surely hit bigger times had the band existed, or released them a couple of years earlier. It's great the album has a reissue because any fan of melodic metal will surely find Hraven's Edge heaven sent, and for the sceptical hard metallers out there, even they'll be surprised by the beefy ingredients this album has to offer. More stomp than pomp...

8/10