DC4 – Volume One

The Duncan brothers, featuring guitarist Jeff from Armored Saint as well as Matt on bass and Shawn on drums, release their first (hopefully of many) CDs. Where and how second guitarist Hyland Church fits the brotherhood, I don’t know, he could be a brother from another mother – or father. I don’t care. Any member or fan of Armored Saint is a brother of mine, that’s for sure. DC4 sounds a bit more modern than Jeff’s real home, but despite the double snare drum beats it never gets too modern for the old-school metal fan. The lead vocals, also done by Jeff, who has gone a long way since Lostboys, remind in fact a little of Mister Bush, especially in the opener “Playing House”, and as Joey Vera handles the production, things can’t really go very wrong.

There are certainly enough metal riffs to keep metal fans interested, and unlike the rest of modern metal, some killer leads are featured on the disc as well. I really don’t know why I keep coming back to the word modern, as it might scare a few of you off. It’s not that modern, yours truly is not into modern metal at all, so chances are; this isn’t very modern after all, just a bit more than the Saints, or DC4 have succeeded taking traditional metal a bit further and still made it suitable for the conservative metalheads. I could simply call this a great rock ‘n’ roll album, with a hard edge to it, with nice melodies and great handwork. I think I will stick to that instead. Let’s have another one, boys, or brothers…