It ain’t easy bein’ Diamond Head. It never was. There was a brief window when they were the absolute bleeding edge of the then-burgeoning NWOBHM sound, but they took so many comical wrong turns that by the time heavy metal landed as a global cultural force in the mid 80s, they were already lost in the weeds somewhere.
So here’s the trick they’ve gotta pull off with this album, their first in eight years and with new singer Rasmus Bom Andersen – it’s gotta sound like Am I Evil, but it can’t sound like it’s trying to sound like Am I Evil. And goddammit, if that’s not exactly what guitarist/founder Brian Tatler and the boys have done here.
Diamond Head is the perfect follow-up to their ’82 landmark Borrowed Time, filled with all the chugging riffs, high-flying solos and bombastic hooks you could hope for, and none of the noodle-y prog or commercial cash-ins that sunk them back in the 80s. More importantly, it doesn’t sound like a recreation of past glories. It just fuckin’ rocks, in glorious, timeless fashion.
