LEATHÜRBITCH – Shattered Vanity

Shattered Vanity album cover art.
  • 4/10
    LEATHÜRBITCH - Shattered Vanity - 4/10
4/10

Summary

Label: Shadow Kingdom
Release date: June 2, 2023

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Portland, Oregon based band Leathürbitch, who proclaim themselves as emulating bands from the now classic Metal Massacre compilations of the early 80s have released their second studio effort Shattered Vanity on Shadow Kingdom Records. The follow up to 2019’s Into The Night, the new album takes the band down a different musical path with less glam influences, and more thrash.

Album Or Demo

The band states about the new album that ” The ‘Bitch is back”, branding themselves their own new genre of “Portland Sleaze Speed”. The 9 new songs have several things in common: One, the first 6 of 9 songs have almost the identical tempo, making if a fatiguing experience to sit through. Second: The bass guitar is mostly non-existent as it’s buried, giving the album a very thin, midrange sound throughout. Third: The production values are scraping the bottom of the barrel, with glaring problems like the intro of the track “Betrayal” where it sounds like the drums are clipped as they come in, with part of the recording perhaps missing. The overall effect of these is that the album feels more like a first time demo, made on a shoestring budget. With the affordability of high quality home recording gear today, this is completely unnecessary.

Final Notes

If the goal of Leathürbitch was truly to emulate sounds off of Metal Massacre recordings, then in one sense they have: The whole album sounds like a cheaply made demo. The record offers nothing new, nothing you haven’t heard before, and certainly nothing to excite and warrant multiple plays. This reviewer wonders if this could have been a better album with better production, and the answer is a resounding yes. Fans aren’t looking to relive the early days of bad recordings of their favorite bands from the 80s, and hopefully Leathürbitch can learn this, and come back with something metal fans do want: well made, well written, and well produced Heavy Metal.

Leathurbitch band photo 2023.

Leathürbitch Lineup

  • Joel Starr – Vocals
  • Pat Sandiford – Guitar
  • Alex Ponder – Guitar
  • Courtland Murphy – Bass
  • Charlie Koryn – Drums

Shattered Vanity – Tracklist

  1. The Dark Mirror
  2. Shattered Vanity
  3. Betrayal
  4. Shadow Mistress
  5. Graveyard Eyes
  6. The Invitation
  7. Nasty Reputation
  8. Morphina
  9. Horror’s Unseen

Author

  • Bryce Van Patten

    Bryce is an audio engineer and a graphic designer here at Metal Express Radio. From the day he purchased his first album (Machine Head by Deep Purple), he has had a passion for heavy music, which has influenced his whole life. Bryce is from the great Pacific Northwest in USA, and has played in metal bands like Babylon, Holy Terror, The Wild Dogs, Warhead and Egypt through the 80s. He had his first interview for the Portland, Oregon publication The Rock Rag with guitarist Paul Gilbert in his Racer X days. Then he was honored to get to have drinks, and talk for an hour with the legendary Dan McCafferty of Nazareth for his second interview. In 2013, he spent an amazing hour talking to Andi Deris of Helloween, which was the high point of his heavy metal journalism.   In the year 2001, he formed Man in Black Music Publishing. They released recordings by several local bands, and in the spirit of the old Metal Massacre compilations, he created a 2-album series called The Defenders of Metal. The albums featured classic styled Metal bands from all around the world, with bands from Australia to England, and from Argentina to Russia. Currently, he is the producer/creator/vocalist of the Metal band The Black Tuesdays.

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