C.I.A. – Attitude

There is no denying that Glenn Evans is a talented individual. Best known as the drummer for Nuclear Assault, Glenn is also an accomplished guitarist, bassist, and vocalist, as well as a songwriter. If you want to hear Glenn and all of his many talents, then now is your chance to pick up the re-release of his solo project, CIA, Attitude.

Attitude was originally released in 1992 as a way for Glenn to “explore his musical boundaries.” Those boundaries seem to consist of embracing the West Coast Thrash genre as opposed to his native New York sounds. Bands like Anthrax, Overkill, and Nuclear Assault were really the embodiment of the NYC Hard Core sound of the 80’s and early 90’s. Whereas bands like Metallica, Megadeth, and Exodus had the same kind of aggression, they didn’t come across as blunt as their East Coast brethren.

Attitude seems to thrive directly from albums such as Metallica’s Kill Em’ All and Megadeth’s Killing is My Business … Vocally, there is no denying that Glenn has a Dave Mustaine-like delivery, although he never catches that quirky snarl that made Mustaine a Metal Icon. Where Mustaine was creating classic riffs that would epitomize his career, Glenn, with a little help from Nuclear Assault six string maestro Dave DiPietro, sounds like he picked through the scarf bin at Metal-Riffs-R-Us; choosing to rely on a hodge-podge of Metallica & Testament leftovers.

Realistically, this album was eight or nine years behind the times when it was originally released in 1992. Today, it sounds like an album more than twenty years tardy. It’s not that it is a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but it was never a great album making one wonder why it was re-released in the first place.

If you really want some bang for your buck and you don’t already own the early Metallica and Megadeth releases, then those are going to give you a much better interpretation of what this Thrash genre was about … and if you really want to hear Glenn Evans excelling at his talents, stick with his money band Nuclear Assault, or even dig a little farther into his past with the cult classic T.T. Quick and their first EP.