Lizzy Borden - Appointment With Death
Metal Blade
Heavy Metal
11 songs (53'32)
Release year: 2007
Lizzy Borden, Metal Blade
Reviewed by Crims

For those that don’t know Lizzy Borden was a mainstay of the American Metal scene in the late 80’s. They released four full-lengths along with one memorable live CD. Though they were always rather popular (from a critics standpoint), they, like other bands hit their stride around the same time that Grunge and Alternative Rock started to make a splash and the band was mostly forgotten about. I own two of the four full-lengths and have listened to others at one time or another. I will be honest and state I was never a huge fan of the band but they were consistently above average musically while completely outstanding vocally thanks to the vocalist whose stage name happens to also be Lizzy Borden. Much to my surprise, about seven years ago I attended a rather forgettable Yngwie Malmsteen concert (half of the band didn’t make it across the Canadian border), thus the real show stealer was the 2nd band to take the stage, which of course was Lizzy Borden. After an 11 year absence they had finally released a new CD entitled Deal With The Devil in 2000 which they were supporting with this tour. I was entirely impressed with the new material and immediately downloaded as many song as I could when I got home that night and then bought the CD the next day. Though the overall CD was not as consistent as I had hoped there were a lot of fantastic songs that featured up-beat rhythms (that bordered on Power Metal), great guitar melodies, and an instantly memorable vocal performance. I still listen to many songs from that CD on a semi-regular basis. Thus after another long absence (7 years this time) Lizzy and friends are back with a solid and appropriate follow-up to Deal With The Devil entitled Appointment With Death.

Musically the band has found a very good combination of classic 80’s Heavy Metal elements and sounds from their older material, with slightly newer Metal influences that helps prevent the CD from sounding like re-hash of past glories. Many of the songs are a pleasant trip down memory lane with drum rhythms reminiscent of the early 80’s. There are no gratuitous double bass runs but rather quick spurts to emphasize certain sections along with NWOBHM styled galloping rhythms. The rest of the music is fairly up-beat taking on a tone of many recent AOR and Melodic Metal bands who in reality took their influence from bands like Borden in the 80’s. The riffs help drive the sound but once the vocals come in they really take center stage. Borden has a highly melodic voice with a strong range. He gets almost as high as Geoff Tate on many of occasion but can sing more mid-range when needed. The end result is always memorable as there wasn’t really a chorus that I didn’t sing-along to the second time through. In reality some choruses are so damn catchy they border on pop-music melodies but this didn’t bother me at all except on Under Your Skin which sounds like a really cheesy Hair Metal chorus more than anything. Another nice aspect of the music is the leads which are all over the place on these songs. There is usually more than one solo per song with plenty of theme leads which have a Melodic Metal vibe (stuff like Axxis) and at times are played right along side the riffs and vocals.

To keep things fresh the band incorporates more recent Metal influences into their music. Keep in mind I’m not talking about Metalcore or anything like that but actually more like recent Bruce Dickinson solo material type of influences. Check out the opening riff and drum pattern on the awesome Tomorrow Never Comes (it has Chemical Wedding written all over the main riff). Another great example is the opening lead to Bloody Tears which has a really strong European Power Metal vibe which then goes into more of the Bruce Dickinson material. Furthermore, Somethin’s Crawlin’ has a verse atmosphere that wouldn’t sound out of place on the slow and heavy Pagan’s Mind material (not to mention Borden gets as high as Nils K. Rue). Granted, the chorus goes into a completely different direction (much to my dismay) but the verse goes a long way to showing how a band can successfully incorporate some old with the new with the new not having to be Metalcore or Nu-Metal.

Much like Deal With The Devil this CD contains some absolutely killer Heavy Metal but then some questionable songs like Under The Skin and goofy choruses like on Somethin’s Crawnlin’ (this despite the amazing rest of the song). How much you enjoy this CD is really going to depend on how much melody you can stomach. The choruses do get overly melodic as I alluded to so fans of AOR and the radio-friendly Heavy Metal of the 80’s won’t mind at all and will likely love it. Many of the riffs and rhythms certainly have balls (check out We Are The Only One’s which harkens back to their sound of the 80's which always bordered on US Power Metal) but once the choruses kick in the balls take a back seat to the melody. I for one didn’t mind it all and therefore got a great deal of enjoyment out of this. I would say I enjoyed it more from beginning to end than I did Deal With The Devil, as that CD has a lot of filler near the end. For people who listened to their older material I can say the song writing style of the band has largely stayed unchanged and musically this is a very natural evolution of the band as they have incorporated more recent Melodic Metal influences with their classic 80’s sound very nicely. Highly recommended to current fans of the band, and for those of you who missed the boat on Lizzy Borden in the 80’s if Traditional Heavy Metal mixed with AOR melodies, some Power Metal riffs, and Bruce Dickinson (i.e. Roy Z) down-tuned riffs sound like an interesting combination you should not be disappointed.

Killing Songs :
Appointment With Death, Bloody Tears, Tomorrow Never Comes, (We Are) the Only One's, Live Forever
Crims quoted 84 / 100
Other albums by Lizzy Borden that we have reviewed:
Lizzy Borden - Deal With The Devil reviewed by Danny and quoted 92 / 100
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