Honor & Blood

On this album, Tank strains to match This Means War's critically lauded raunch, right down to aping its predecessor's blueprint: three songs on side one, four songs on side two. That's not to say the group's single-minded chugalug has gotten tamer: "The War Drags Ever On" shudders with a ferocity that would make Motorhead proud, but is also a ringer for the last album's "Just Like Something from Hell." The first side remains a seamless display of what made Tank comers in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal sweepstakes: blunderbuss guitars, cymbal-soaked drums, and vocals that sound like they're being phoned in from the bottom of a gravel pit. Tank shone brightest on these lengthy ruminations about the horrors of war; it's hard to imagine how Metallica could have stepped down a similar path without hearing these guys first. Side two is a more inconsistent exercise plagued by an insistence on riffing for its own sake. The gleeful dismantling of Aretha Franklin's standard "Chain of Fools" is the standout -- if only because it's so unusual in this context -- while "Too Tired to Wait for Love" and "Kill" pull off the old riotous majesty, but could stand some more well-rounded melodies. Honour & Blood is a solid outing that only suffers when stacked against its predecessor. Tank and riff-mad peers like Raven and Warfare would succumb to an '80s-era Darwinian logic that stranded them at the altar -- while Bon Jovi and Def Leppard sailed into poppier pastures and hit the jackpot. It's just like high school: The prevaricating prom kings got the cars and girls, while everyone else got to watch. ~ Ralph Heibutzki