LEO BIOLLO - FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL TO THE GATES OF HEAVEN
INDEPENDENT
Metal To Infinity
I'm
sure that all of you out there heard in the past about albums so called one-man
projects. You know, that kinda works where all the present instruments / vocals
are done by one single musician – well, I’d like to describe them as real
magicians. JUST
ROCK
PR sent me the album from a Canadian solo
artist named Leo Biollo last week en make notice of this fact right on: “From
The Depths Of Hell To The Gates Of Heaven” will take your breath away for sure.
Have quite a few solo albums in my own CD collection but none of these has the
quality of Leo’s debut effort… let that be clear!
Leo
started writing own music and learned to handle a guitar at the age of 12 –
throughout the years he developed into a phenomenal axeman loaded with ‘gifted
to the bone / world class’ tactics. Being into hard Rock and Metal for decades
myself, I have to admit that I never heard of Mr. LB before. Can’t tell you
how pleased I am to meet a solo artist like this – about his debut album,
I’d like to say the following words…
The
album is a self produced output – as mentioned before all guitars, bass lines,
sequencing drums and vocals you’ll hear come from the man himself and that’s
quite impressive to me. Without reading the info sheet before listening to
entire album, you definitely would say: “damn, this a great band”.
Afterwards you have to reconsider your thoughts because of the fact you have to
deal with a one guy delivering a concept album so beautiful!
Concerning
the style you’ll hear on the album, well I'm sure that Bay Area Thrash Metal
maniacs will be completely satisfied. There are seven songs served with an
excellent sound production, good looking booklet including a few images of Leo
himself, lyrics, the mention of credits / thank yous,… the regular stuff
actually. Leo has a good voice to me – as for playing 80s Thrash Metal, this
way vocal use fits completely. He does remind me of the singer from eighties
thrashers Atrophy more than once. Based on the music only, comparisons with
almighty Forbidden, Metallica (Master Of Puppets period), early Testament /
Megadeth / Annihilator, Atrophy can
be mentioned as well - looking for details, I even hear a little bit of early
Slayer too. I can’t say it over and over again – this album means a lot for
myself, and more than probably also for old school thrashers with a heart for
Bay Area stuff!
From
the great opener ‘Demonic’ up to song number 6 entitled ‘Killing The
Demon’, Leo Biollo leaves me astonished! So pure, so amazingly great skilled
– AWESOME, but the best has yet to come according to myself. There is one last
song called ‘The Gates Of Heaven’ … well, I nearly got a cardiac arrest (laughs)
I heard the track for the first time. More than eleven minutes lasting Thrash
Metal with neck snapping tempo changes, breaks, fast riffs and incredible shred
tactics, quite aggressive vocals… I’ve played the song many times til now
and I honestly can’t get enough of it. Expect the unexpected and enjoy with
full force… songs like this one (and actually the entire album) deserve my
complete dignity for sure.
I’ve
already added Leo Biollo to my personal list of favourite 2009 albums. Truly
longing for future efforts from this world class Metal artist – I need a break
right now before re-start listening to his album again. Guitar freaks into 80s
Bay Area Thrash Metal – check the master / the genius out at the following
page: www.leobiollomusic.com.
MY POINTS: 94 / 100 (Review by Stefan)