Band:	3 Inches Of Blood
Album:	Long Live Heavy Metal
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	March 2012

01. Metal Woman
02. My Sword Will Not Sleep
03. Leather Lord
04. Chief And The Blade
05. Dark Messenger
06. Look Out
07. 4000 Torches
08. Leave It On The Ice
09. Die For Gold (Upon The Boiling Sea IV)
10. Storming Juno
11. Men Of Fortune
12. One For The Ditch
13. Lords Of Change [bonus]
14. Strength Of The Grave [bonus]
15. Daytona [bonus]

With 3 Inches Of Blood's last album Here Waits Thy Doom, we saw the band step back from the super-compressed digital recording style they once had, and moved into an organic style direction. Now, despite being a well-written album, the recording style gave it the impression of being a quiet, lazy sounding album. Well, as it may come as great news to some, Long Live Heavy Metal is a much more heavy hitting album, despite being a slight step backwards in song writing consistency.

First of all, for old time fans who were displeased with Here Waits Thy Doom, this may be just for you. Long Live Heavy Metal is a step away from the really old school sound, and back toward the more modern, aggressive edge they had before. Justin Hagberg's harsh vocals really stepped up this time around, doing a much better job filling in that gap left by screamer Jamie Hooper years ago. The production takes this one step further; it's the thickest, heaviest production job they've ever had, which does justice to their most aggressive riffs yet, which in turn makes this probably the most in-your-face, steamrolling record they've put out so far. The rest of the whole picture? Well, at this point there's little need to explain, it's the same variation of NWOBHM drenched thrash (or thrash drenched NWOBHM, if you prefer) they've been doing for years...Just taken in a slightly different direction, as they have shown to do from record to record. Either way, long-time fans are not going to be alienated by this.

At times, this album really brings in mind their second album Advance And Vanquish, consistency wise. Much like that album, Long Live Heavy Metal contains some of their greatest song writing, but also some of their most repetitive and aimless. Put it this way, Here Waits Thy Doom had 2, maybe 3 boring songs, the rest were extremely well written, despite being perhaps hindered by a quiet recording. This, on the other hand, has songs that blow everything from Here Waits Thy Doom, or arguably the rest of their discography out of the water, while it also contains more filler than their last effort.

The polarized consistency of this album makes it an impossible to rate. On one hand, judging by the top songs, it could easily be a 9+/10. Taking into account the filler, it could sit somewhere in the low 7's. Either way, 3 Inches Of Blood fans will find something great here, while the improvements on performance and recording, despite the hit-or-miss song writing will probably turn on some sceptics as well, even if it isn't "album of the year" material.