NEVER REBORN
NEVER REBORN "Ashes Of Our Past"
By Dr. Abner Mality
Steve White, the main songwriter for Arizona's NEVER REBORN, must be a veteran metal graybeard like The Good Doctor. He mentions he wrote one of the songs here all the way back in 1984! But I could detect the scent of a true 80's metal head wafting all over "Ashes Of Our Past" even without that bit of information. This tree has some very deep roots.
NEVER REBORN has a sound like a bulldozer. It just trudges over everything in a steady path of destruction. The band's riffing is curious in that it sounds like thrash, but there's not that much speed. And the approach works...there's a steady grinding power behind cuts like "Never Reborn", "Existence Denied" and especially the killer "Children Of Fire" that plows you into the asphalt. There's nothing technical about it....it's just sheer brute force.
The vocals also help make the band memorable. They are a kind of angry raspy sneer....not black or death metal, but definitely PISSED and harsh sounding. They fit like a glove. Elsewhere, there are "true" metal riffs backing up the title track and "Requiem"(World of Hurt) that show NEVER REBORN has listened to their fair share of PRIEST and ACCEPT albums. The one complaint I would make is that some songs like "Existence Denied" and "Haunted Eternally" are just too long, leading to some monotony.. A couple of minutes clipped from these would have helped both.
I had zero expectations when I pressed play on "Ashes Of Our Past", but was pleasantly surprised to get a 50 ton weight dropped on my head....this is HEAVY!