Collateral by Collateral: fizzing, but also flat and frustrating

So close to being a powerhouse debut from NWOCR hopefuls Collateral

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Collateral: Collateral
(Image: © Roulette Media)

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This is an album that frustrates. Because Collateral should have come up with something that thunders, roars and makes you wanna dance, but the production lets them down. 

This Brit band have everything to make an impact. Their songs are melodic, seizing the ground between Thin Lizzy, Gun and Nazareth. The instrumental dexterity is effortless and full of character. And Angelo Tristan’s vocals are charismatic and sparkling. 

All the ingredients are there for an album to have us raving, but the sound is flat, lacking the requisite dynamic.

So what might have been a classic first album ends up being just good. 

However, blast out songs like Midnight Queen, Mr Bigshot and Lullaby, and you can feel the fizzing excitement in a band who many are tipping for great things. 

Someone please remix this album to give it the zip that Collateral deserve

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.