Silver Dollar - Covers From Hell
Self Financed
Heavy Metal Covers
12 songs (52:22)
Release year: 2002
Silver Dollar
Reviewed by Mike

I have to admit that I am not much of a fan of cover albums. For the most part, cover songs never surpass or even match the quality and magic of the original. In fact, most cover songs only motivate me to pop the original in my CD player. Despite what I’ve just said, I wanted to take a look at this album with an objective ear and come up with an objective review. Even though my interest in tribute albums and cover albums is not very high, I’ll say that this is a good album.

Cover albums can also serve to secure the band a record deal and to get their name out to the masses to establish themselves as a viable player in the music scene. Well, I see no reason at all why this band can’t do both with this collection of songs. The band has proven to me that they are very talented band worth hearing and worth the time and attention from a record label. The band offers twelve tracks of our favorite metal classics:

Bark At the Moon
Aces High
Mr Crowley
We Rock
I Don’t Know
Don’t Talk To Strangers
I Wanna Be Somebody
Freewheel Burning
Crazy Train
Run To The Hills
Ace of Spades
Lost Forever

As you can tell, Silver Dollar are fans of Iron Maiden and especially big fans of Ozzy Osbourne. Perhaps that is because the singer has a voice very reminiscent of the Madman himself with a little Sebastian Bach (Skid Row) thrown in. He nails Ozzy perfectly, especially on Crazy Train and he can pull out a lower, gritty delivery ala Bach at times too. The vocalist will certainly be a shining point for this band. I also like the Iron Maiden covers as well: outstanding job with the dual guitar leads! The guitar work of Silver Dollar is impressive throughout this album as there are some extra solos thrown in most of the songs to mix things up a little. Aside from some variation in guitar solos, the band stays pretty true to the original songs on this album. While none of the Silver Dollar versions of these songs outmatches the original, they are all technically very well done. The only complaint I have is one that can be expected from a self financed release: the production. I’m sure this will be corrected once the band secures a record deal and receives a recording budget. The drumming is the only major deficiency as far as production goes. The drums have a very tinny sound to them, very raw and unpolished. Like I said though, the point of releases like this are to secure a record deal and make fans aware of their presence and so lesser production can be forgiven at this stage of the game.

For those of you eager to discover quality up and coming metal bands or who like well done cover songs, you will be impressed with this release. These guys have the talent to produce a quality release: especially when it comes to the guitars and the Ozzy-like vocalist. Now that we know this band has talent, let’s see if their song writing skills are good enough to create some good original songs and if they can find a producer to bring their sound to life. I look forward to their next release….

Killing Songs :
The Ozzy and Maiden tracks best show the talent of the band.
Mike quoted no quote
Other albums by Silver Dollar that we have reviewed:
Silver Dollar - Evil Never Sleeps reviewed by Marty and quoted 76 / 100
Silver Dollar - EP Pre Release reviewed by Mike and quoted no quote
0 readers voted
Average:
 0
You did not vote yet.
Vote now

There are no replies yet to this review
Be the first one to post a reply!