Metal Underground.com

Hailing from Vancouver, Canada, 3 Inches of Blood is a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously. With cheesy fantasy based song titles like "Destroy the Orcs" and "Axes of Evil" (which I found particularly humorous), they fit the heavy/power metal genre very well.

"Advance and Vanquish" is an album that contains a heap of energy the entire way through. The album starts out full blast and never really quits. The riffing is slowed down a bit at the end of “Swordmaster,” providing for a quick sound somewhat reminiscent to Carcass’ "Heartwork," but that’s about it.

The riffs are satisfyingly thrash-y, combined with a sound that comes close to melodic death metal. The drumming is plenty satisfactory for the high energy feel of the album, but at times feels monotonous and lacking, with very few interesting fills involved.

“Deadly Sinners” is by far the stand out track of the album, and seems to have become the band’s anthem of sorts. The song is about an apparent battle for the genre of metal itself and, while corny, is a very entertaining song to sing along to. The song utilizes memorable riffing, along with the vocalist’s ear-splitting high pitched vocals, to create an unforgettable tune.

The other songs have a few stand-out moments, but for the most part, this album isn’t very memorable. Almost all of the songs have a poetic rhyming structure (particularly noticeable in “Premonition of Pain”) to create an epic feel. It works just fine, but becomes rather stale when it’s used over and over again.

“Crazy Nights” and “Destroy the Orcs” (which are placed one right after the other) have extremely repetitive choruses. This works for the sing-along nature of the album, but the songs are near the album’s end and should have been placed earlier, due to the fact that it was at this point that the album became rather tedious.

3 Inches of Blood is a band that makes fun, catchy music and are great musicians to boot. "Advance and Vanquish" has some songs that I would listen to again regularly, but for the most part, they run together too much. It’s worth at least one listen, but I can’t imagine coming back to it again and again.