Nail

Rainer Wiechmann & Mole
2007



Rainer (guitar/bass) and Cindy Wiechmann (vocals) are known on this release as C and Rhino, but both were members of Helix at one point. The music contained on this disc is certainly more than a little removed from Helix. The style here is far more metal than hard rock with some definite roots in say a mid-tempo 1980's style of metal. The first perhaps four tracks were honestly kind of unimpressive. Not exactly bad, but just kind of bland and predictable as far the music goes. The vocals were a little better, but they just fairly limited in what they could or at least what they were trying to do. I was actually having trouble forcing myself to go on at that point, but I was glad that I pushed on. Then on track five the music suddenly came alive as the bass can be heard, the guitar gets beyond just couple of parts and the vocals have emotion and a decent amount of range. I am not sure how or why this transformation occured, but after this switch the band keeps this momentum going through most of the rest of the album. They manage to change the pace easily and get beyond the simplistic and generic sound I was afraid they would be stuck on. The vocals of C are really on for most of the album although they could have come up a little in the mix. The music moves along well enough and they are not pushing any boundries, but it kept my attention. I would have liked this style a lot twenty years ago and it's appealing enough now as well. I still think this band's playing talent is greater than their writing and if the writing could come up to the level of the performances than they might really have something.

http://www.myspace.com/nailtheband