Darkside - Masquerade (1999)

Cost: $1.00

Impossible not to have high hopes when you find something in the bargain bin with Judas Priest in the thanks list ("for the influence") as well as W.A.S.P. and Lizzy Borden.  It's okay overall compared to some of the dollar disc garbage I come across, but it's far from the traditional HM I was hoping for.  It's in the 90s style of contemporary HM, with downtuned guitars and lots of groovy riffs.  Obviously for me, the less modern influences, the better, but here they aren't overboard enough to make me instantly hate it.  Also, this is just straightforward '90s heavy metal.  No thrash parts.  No power metal influence.  No forays into non-metal stuff either.  Metal-archives calls them "progressive heavy metal"--perhaps some isolated bits here and there, and there's a short bass solo track, but I think any sort of progressive tag is a huge misnomer.

One of the biggest strikes against the disc is the vocal performance.  The guy uses an inoffensive midrange and isn't bad per se, but the first time I listened to the CD, the vocals began to annoy me more and more, and I couldn't immediately pinpoint why.  First, they're monotonous.  The vocal cadence sounds similar in most of the songs, and beyond some sparingly used growly backing vox and gang choruses, there's not much variety.  They do a cover of "Jenny" (yep, the 867-5309 song),  and it's sung in the same style and flat tone as the rest of the CD.  It's played pretty straight-up as a metal version, but the growling chorus vox suggest some tongue-in-cheekiness.

There are also some corny vocal mannerisms which seem more fitting for a hard rock or alternative rock vocalist.   He's fond of extending the very ends of vocal lines for emphasis--either drawing them out, repeating them, or throwing a "yeah" in there, like Hetfield.  Wouldn't be hard to build a drinking game around it.  Unfortunately his vocals still come off as monotonous and fairly uncharismatic, and coupled with some of the groovy riffs, I think this makes the music seem more inclined towards '90s trend stuff than it actually is.