CIRITH UNGOL – Servants Of Chaos

American Cirith Ungol played hippie metal long before Cliff Burton put on his pants, and they released a couple of good CD’s in the early eighties, ”Frost And Fire” and ”King Of The Dead”. They had a unique sound that mixed keyboards with heavy metal, while the singer reminded a bit of Alan Tecchio, with a greater range. This CD shows that the band has cleaned their basement, meaning that the die hards will tell Santa Claus to take a hike on Christmas Eve – he just can’t top this. Commercially, I think this CD should have been a single disc, and not a double. There’s simply too much strange stuff to keep the listener interested. On the other hand – if Cirith Ungol were my favorite band I wouldn’t mind all kinds of weird shit… That means, I give the band credit for cleaning up their cellar completely. But like I say about most records like this: Get the others first, then come back to this one if you feel like completing your collection.