Jag Panzer

The Age Of Mastery (Century Media)
by Martin Popoff

Strange, chopped-up history for this Colorado institution, Jag Panzer leaping quickly to the fore with their debut masterpiece back in ’83, a little chest-ripping nugget called Ample Destruction. But then total drift, guerrilla bootlegging of their work, two comeback records, and now The Age Of Mastery. Heck, everybody loves these guys, especially now that Harry’s back wailing like Manowar. Mark Briody’s musical mayhem is the same tried, steel, and true metal classicism, again, somewhere between Manowar, heroic Priest, even more heroic Savatage, Nevermore, and Iced Earth. Briody’s stated claim this time was the curious credo of allowing everybody to do exactly whatever they wanted to do on a record, as long as it was outrageously metal. The results are just that. Production values are left to the wayward vagaries of wattage, all teeth and torn muscle, while the band leans mission-bent into riffs, leads and pounding rhythms that understand so well the magical pin-prick of metal. Probably the band’s drain-a-beer best.
(2323 W. El Segundo Blvd. Hawthorne, CA 90250)