Tank
Valley of Tears
Metal Mind Productions
2015
Tank are a band, which a lot of metal fans like since their more melodic approach to an orthodox Motorhead meets Saxon with bits of Venom early on, made em a lads’ band…
Following a rather ill fated attempt at an album in the early 00s and having pretty much been dormant for most of the 90s, in 2007 Tank split up with Algy Ward doing his version of the band and releasing so far one album and having another one in the pipeline, while the early members, Evans/Tucker procuring Doogie White and releasing a couple of albums on their own (that felt quite similar to Saxon rather than Saxon) under exactly the same moniker, a situation that’s quite confusing.
Obviously Algy is unable to perform live anymore, but still the whole “divorce” was far from a smooth one. White a pretty much everyone else was let go and a new lineup formulated around Evans and Tucker, featuring ex-Dragonforce singer ZP Theart, one time Sodom drummer Bobby Schottkowski and Vengeance’s bassist Barend Courbois. Their newest album “Valley of Tears” is a rather enjoyable affair and can be seen as a continuation of the “10s” Tank they established, but progressively the band has less and less to do with the original “Tank”. Have even called them “Wank” but those are big time Algy fans… I’d change the name to Filthounds or something, but hey… it’s not my business to resolve people business issues.
As an album “Valley of Tears” is surprisingly solid and not really bad as a melodic classic metal release with the occasional harder moment. ZP sounds a lot better than he ever did in Dragonfarce but still it’s a slightly messed up situation. I’d probably still pick the album up, should I find it, as I haven’t seen a MM release these south in ages, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get it either… I’m divided over this.
Following a rather ill fated attempt at an album in the early 00s and having pretty much been dormant for most of the 90s, in 2007 Tank split up with Algy Ward doing his version of the band and releasing so far one album and having another one in the pipeline, while the early members, Evans/Tucker procuring Doogie White and releasing a couple of albums on their own (that felt quite similar to Saxon rather than Saxon) under exactly the same moniker, a situation that’s quite confusing.
Obviously Algy is unable to perform live anymore, but still the whole “divorce” was far from a smooth one. White a pretty much everyone else was let go and a new lineup formulated around Evans and Tucker, featuring ex-Dragonforce singer ZP Theart, one time Sodom drummer Bobby Schottkowski and Vengeance’s bassist Barend Courbois. Their newest album “Valley of Tears” is a rather enjoyable affair and can be seen as a continuation of the “10s” Tank they established, but progressively the band has less and less to do with the original “Tank”. Have even called them “Wank” but those are big time Algy fans… I’d change the name to Filthounds or something, but hey… it’s not my business to resolve people business issues.
As an album “Valley of Tears” is surprisingly solid and not really bad as a melodic classic metal release with the occasional harder moment. ZP sounds a lot better than he ever did in Dragonfarce but still it’s a slightly messed up situation. I’d probably still pick the album up, should I find it, as I haven’t seen a MM release these south in ages, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get it either… I’m divided over this.