{"id":8163,"date":"2009-01-28T00:12:07","date_gmt":"2009-01-28T00:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=8163"},"modified":"2013-06-01T13:57:47","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T13:57:47","slug":"ep-review-slam-alley-21-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/ep-review-slam-alley-21-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"SLAM ALLEY – 21 Fire EP (2009) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SLAM ALLEY
21 Fire EP<\/strong><\/span>
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\nDemon Doll (2009)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Wow, if this EP from Hollywood, California\u2019s Slam Alley had been released circa \u201993 I\u2019d have easily mistaken this for Skid Row at their most angry. <\/p>\n

This is a pretty darn heavy sleaze rock record that boasts the furious vocal delivery of one Christan Dorris and some stonking guitar work courtesy of D.K. Revelle and Ray Camacho. Couple this with some heavyweight drumming and monster bass and you\u2019re onto a sure-fire winner that somehow wears its influences on its sleeve but rocks so hard that you don\u2019t care what it sounds like.<\/p>\n

All I can really say is that if you\u2019re a big fan of Skid Row, circa Slave To The Grind<\/em> (1991), and more so Sebastian Bach\u2019s Angel Down<\/em> (2007) opus, then you\u2019re gonna love this. A track like \u2018Cry For Freedom\u2019 is so heavy you\u2019ll need a crane to lift it onto the turntable, and it\u2019s the standout rocker on this five track affair.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not to say that the other four cuts aren\u2019t of worth. \u2018Dogz Go Downtown\u2019 chugs along, leaving the speakers in pieces, with Slam Alley\u2019s frontman Christian Dorris shining once again. Dorris sets this record on fire, and it\u2019s great to hear a vocalist with such attitude and aggression to his voice.<\/p>\n

I must admit, that when I first saw the cover of this record I was expecting some mediocre and weak sounding sleaze rock… but how wrong was I? The title track is a mid-tempo slab of fiery metal that stomps in with a marching drum. But the big surprise on the EP is the closer, \u2018For Heaven Sake\u2019, a sweeping ballad that floats in one with a serene piano, and reaches its climax almost three minutes in. This is hair metal at its best, bereft of the corny, it\u2019s a genuinely brilliant anthem and as it drifts to silence I\u2019m left gagging for more of Slam Alley.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this band has long gone, having never got the recognition they deserved, and these recordings date back to 1995. Now, many years later, this epic EP has seen the light of day thanks to Demon Doll Records. Let\u2019s hope metalheads around the world will not think this is some modern rip-off. It\u2019s really hard to believe that Slam Alley weren\u2019t big, but isn\u2019t that the same old story?<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SLAM ALLEY21 Fire EP Demon Doll (2009)Rating: 8\/10 Wow, if this EP from Hollywood, California\u2019s Slam Alley had been released circa \u201993 I\u2019d have easily mistaken this for Skid Row at their most angry. This is a pretty darn heavy sleaze rock record that boasts the furious vocal delivery of one Christan Dorris and some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,429],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-slam-alley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8163"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11955,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions\/11955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}