This Canadian power-metal/metalcore band out of Vancouver released their last album on Roadrunner Records in 2007. This is their first album under their new roof and the first thing noticeable on this record is the absence of their hardcore singer Jamie Hooper. That’s an immense missing, because the dual vocal attack between high-pitched heavy metal vocals and raw hardcore vocals made this band unique. What is left are the high-pitched vocals of Cam Pipes and some shouting of one of the guitar-players.
 

Luckily the music is on the same level as the previous releases. The perfect mix between traditional heavy metal like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and the power and energy of metalcore. This is spiced up with a healthy dose of ripping thrash-metal riffs and there you have it; the sound of 3 Inches Of Blood. This is the ideal band to teach those metalcore youngsters some heavy metal history!
 

The album starts of a little slow with songs like ‘Battles And Brotherhood’ and ‘Rock In Hell’ that are decent mid-tempo songs, but don’t excel in catchiness. Don’t let this slow start fool you, because the latter two thirds are quality, powerful and energetic songs. With the absolute high-light ‘Preachers Daughter’, which starts off as a serious catchy and bluesy 70’s hardrock song. There are even Hammond organs in it! After 4 minutes this song ends up in a great sing-a-long song. After this odd 3 Inches of Blood song, they rip everything apart with an unbelievable thrashy metal song called ‘Call Of The Hammer’.

Although I really miss the hardcore vocals, this is still a very enjoyable album with some memorable songs on it. And if a band like this, gives history class in heavy metal as good as this, you’ll need to check it out!