On Top – Top Heavy
On Top – Top Heavy CD (HPGD Productions)
I’m a bit puzzled. Totally stoked – to be sure – but a bit puzzled. The name, the cover art, the references to sleaze metal in other reviews I’ve seen… it doesn’t quite jibe with what is actually contained within the grooves of this record. ‘Top Heavy’ – Dig the album cover! Get it?! – is, in fact, top heavy. Top heavy with bad-ass, straight-up METAL. Sleaze? No way. Not even a little bit. Metal. I saw a reference to Loudness online, and I can dig that. Alex Kulick very well could be this generation’s Akira Takasaki (read: Alex Kulick is an amazing guitarist) and to compare drummer Danny Piselli to the legendary Munetaka Higuchi is high – and very well deserved – praise indeed. But the vocals, supplied here by Jaron Gulino – whose bass playing is reminiscent of Coroner’s Ron Broder – veer so close to the realm of Death Angel that I’ve had to check the band photo 6 times just while attempting to type this sentence to make sure that Mark Osegueda isn’t lurking in there somewhere. Does anyone remember metal? You know, metal. Before all the genrefication, before all the mainstream exposure, before all the bullshit. Exciter. Raven. Anvil. Malice. Steeler. Black ‘N’ Blue – before Gene Simmons got his hands on them and tried to turn them into Giuffria. Keel – before Gene Simmons got his hands on them and tried to turn them into Giuffria. (Gene had a tendency to do that a lot. Why did Gene hate metal so much?!?) If you do remember metal, rejoice. If you don’t remember metal, start your history lesson here. On Top is metal. Full stop. Metal. No subgenres apply. Grab a copy of ‘Top Heavy’, crank it to 11, and let the boys in On Top take you back to 1983, when metal was metal and musicianship always mattered. I may be a bit puzzled about the name and the presentation and some of the existing press coverage, but I am clear on at least three points, and I think they are the only three that matter: 1) On Top is metal 2) I love metal 3) sorry, what was I writing? I got caught up in the stupefying metal madness of On Top and lost my train of thought…. The Impaler
