Wayne

Metal Church (Nuclear Blast)
by Scott Hefflon

Jesus, who’s bright idea was this? I mean, sure, I was there, I got the first two records and a t-shirt so faded and tattered it threatens to disintegrate every time I run out of laundry and wear it, and I believe that qualifies me to say “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.” The first two Metal Church records smoked at the time, and maybe they hold up, I don’t know and I don’t care to find out. But Nuclear Blast seems convinced we want new records with the original singer, David Wayne, as well as live recordings of classic shows and new shows, and now this side-project of “classic” metal. And, for once, I’ll side with the little fuckers with no sense of history: Dude, who cares? There are TWO “Heaven and Hell” rip-offs (that’s ’76 Sabbath, for you kids), the plodding clunker “DSD” (which stands for “Die Satan Die,” a dumb song title, not to mention 180 degree off from, ya know, metal, old or nü), and the touching/dreamy/duh “Ballad for Marianne” which emotes somewhere between the “In the misty morning, on the edge of time” beginning of “H&H” and Skid Row’s “18 and Life” or something “modern” like that. And the closing cover of “Mississippi Queen” (that’s by Mountain, kids, a trivia question like “Who wrote ‘Flirtin’ with Disaster'”) is just plain awful. A good example of a worst case example, like “Well, at least we didn’t cover ‘Mississippi Queen’ like Wayne!” Wayne therefore qualifies as the kid in class everyone is glad is dumber than they are. “Well, Wayne got a worse grade than me!” And, of course, parents’ knee-jerk response is “Do you wanna grow up to be a clueless, fat old metal loser who brushed greatness once and is simply embarrassing themselves 15 years later?” Trust me, you don’t want that…
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