Heathen
Victims of Deception [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]
Label: MVD Audio
Heathen packs power and skillful playing on their second full-length release, 1991’s Victims of Deception. The songs are long, complex, full of riffing and melodic passages.
Singer David White Godfrey is a technically proficient singer, but his lyrics don’t always fit the music. Sometimes it seems like he’s shoehorning adequate high school poetry into a fast metal song. It’s too bad Godfrey couldn’t engross himself within the music a little more and take back some of the arrangement. The music, for better or worse, sounds like it was written entirely by guitarists, with the high-pitched singer called in when the riffing gets old. The vocals are tacked on, and that’s a shame because the ingredients for success are there, as proven by the Rainbow cover, “Kill the King,” and the bonus track, “Hellbound.”
Heathen is still around and gigging (mostly festivals in Europe) despite endless lineup changes (all 3 previous lead singers are dead). The core seems to be David White Godfrey (now just “David White”) and guitarist Lee Atlus, who is pulling double-duty in San Francisco thrashers, Exodus, which was co-founded by Kirk Hammett, now of Metallica.
Heathen haven’t released much music since Victims of Deception, however. The sole exception is 2004’s Recovered EP.
-review by resident metalhead Tim O’Regan, whose band Darkfold plays Station 4 this Friday, Nov. 16
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