Hanging in the Balance

Hanging in the Balance is the fifth album on which METAL CHURCH keeps the weight of traditional metal while taking in more melodic development and a modern hardness. Centered on Mike Howe’s powerful yet expressive vocals, the guitars rest on thick riffs while carefully carving melodic space song by song. Howe’s third album with the band, it was the last before the group paused activity in the mid-1990s, yet what it shows is not decline but the clear marks of a challenge to broaden its expression. On songs such as “Gods of Second Chance,” “Losers In the Game,” “Waiting for a Savior” and “No Friend of Mine,” the rhythm section holds a low center of gravity while the vocals throw strong words without losing the outline of the chorus. On “Hypnotized,” “Conductor,” “Down to the River,” “Lovers and Madmen” and “A Subtle War” too, the balance of heaviness and melody is carefully pursued. The relationship between the heaviness of the riffs and how the singing lends melody to them becomes the album’s main pleasure. Letting you taste the band’s toughness and flexibility at once, it is an important record conveying the fullness of the Mike Howe era.