The Caribbean is not the first place which comes to mind when talking about heavy metal, but from the island of Puerto Rico comes Unzane who have been delivering a classic metal sound with thrashing undertones since the turn of the millennium and now, the band are back with their latest album ‘Test of Time’.
With ‘Test of Time’, Unzane charge forward with their hands pressed firmly on their guns. This is an album which sticks very much within its remit, it does a classic heavy metal sound, and it does it well. Yet, ‘Test of Time’ chooses to not ride the coattails of the burgeoning trad metal scene, instead, it opts to carry forward with a thunderous barrage of thrash metal bubbling underneath as tracks such as ‘Boogeyman’, ‘Life Expectancy’ and ‘Emotional Coaster’ have all the tones of Judas Priest, Manowar and Saxon, even if ‘Braveheart Warriors’ sounds a hell of a lot like ‘Steel Vs. Steel’ by Grand Magus, but we can’t hold that against Unzane.
What Unzane have delivered here is a fun and thoroughly enjoyable album of heavy metal, the songs are great and full of replayability. Yeah, sure there’s a lot of homage to other bands here, but that doesn’t stop it from being what it is, a very good album of metal and should be treated as such.
