Sacred Mother Tongue – Out of the Darkness (The End Records)
Friday, 28th June 2013
Really cool name, like swiped from a song by The Cult or something, the U.K.’s Sacred Mother Tongue possess the bare essentials to be on those “straight” metal/rock bands on their Out of the Darkness sophomore outing. By virtue, the band tinkers with a lot of elements found on Metallica’s Black Album, so there’s an obvious ploy to be commercial while being heavy. In America, we call such an outift Five Finger Fruit Punch, and they’re a boy band with tattoos. Suffice it to say, Sacred Mother Tongue doesn’t have to sink that low. (Putting “fruit” in there was 100% on purpose.)
Outside of lead-off track “Demons,” SMT doesn’t try to play the thrash game. Unfortunately, it’s one of those pre-determined songs that has no other place than leading off an album (or a show), designed to show the band has at least some velocity in their britches. From there, it’s up to vocalist Darrin South to play the lead role, and while his pitch-perfect vocals have a marginally distinct flavor to them, there’s no real versatility. When you’re rounding the bend to get to “A Light Will Shine” or “Just A Ride,’ you’ve already heard most of South’s vocal tricks. Ah, such is the life for a singer with actual enunciation and the ability to sing. They can’t win for losing.
The ten songs on Out of the Darkness are in line with early 90’s hard rock radio, doing little, if anything to rock the cradle otherwise. Andy James lays down more than a few cool solos across the board, showing that he has done his Friedman/Dan Spitz homework, but the question remains: Is there a market for a band who right out of the gate is willing to ride or die in radio?
