Foreign Life Forms Inventory (Area 54 - Apocrypha)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Area 54 - Apocrypha
Date:	24/01/08 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Distinctive heavy metal with a strong bass presence and great vocals.

Disadvantages: Oddly, perhaps too great a variety.

It's a shame this Las Vegas band's career abruptly ended here with their third album, as 'Area 54' is an interesting and distinctive album that proves heavy metal was still alive and kicking into the early nineties when many bands abandoned it... well, except that this band too abandoned it shortly thereafter. It doesn't matter anyway, this is a great collection of odd-sounding classic metal tracks that vary from ominous, bass-heavy orations to loose instrumentals and surprisingly old-school happier offerings towards the end of the album, complete with sing-song choruses and cowbells just when you were starting to get used to the dingy side of things.

Steve Plocica has a great voice comparable to Judas Priest's Rob Halford, or at least inhabiting the same range as Plocica's distinctive voice is entirely his own. There's even a touch of contemporary doom in his soaring extremity, and apart from the more obviously commercially-oriented songs like 'The Detriment of Man,' he avoids some easy opportunities to insert grandiose choruses into otherwise low-key songs, refusing to spoil the atmosphere for the sake of a catchy moment in the limelight. Speaking of spotlights, the album does very effectively convey, to me at least (and clearly no one else), a real sense of lurking around top-secret government establishments, whether this was the intended atmosphere or not, but even for its more artistic touches the music is commendably concise and to-the-point even to the extent of leaving unnecessary guitar solos out of a few songs.

Axemen Tony Fredianelli and Chip Chrovian carry the album through with a satisfyingly heavy tone and catchy riffs seemingly inspired more by classic hard rock, punctuated by prominent bass, and even when permitted to go overboard in the free-form solo sections or modestly titled 'Instrubation #3,' they never show off at the sake of spoiling the listener's enjoyment. While this album lies slightly awkwardly between the epic, brooding dimension of Candlemass, the political thrash of Megadeth and the simplistic fun of Judas Priest, it's an impressive album from the start of the nineties that presents heavy metal at its least excessive and most considered, with small leeway granted for when things start getting a little bit too serious.

1. Terrors Holding on to You
2. Catch 22
3. A Night in Fog
4. The Power Elite
5. Instrubation #3
6. Area 54
7. Tian'Anmen Square
8. The Detriment of Man
9. Refuse the Offer That You Can't Refuse
10. Born to This World

Summary: Apocrypha's third album (1990).