Metal Underground.com

Sometimes speed is what you need to succeed. That's definitely the case with Revmatic's "Cold Blooded Demon," a disc that comes roaring to life on its faster tracks — and loses much of its intensity on the slower ones.

This Canadian band cites influences ranging from the Foo Fighters to Kiss, Iron Maiden, and Metallica. The Foo Fighters' influence is definitely felt on the opener, "Head My Way," which comes blasting out of the speakers with a twin-guitar assault by Nathan Yetter (who also sings) and Jay Hopkins. It's a spectacular start to the album and is followed by the slightly slower grind of "She's A Drug," which features a superb solo.

The third track, "Lie To Love Me," has the band slowing down to a mid-tempo plod that you'll hear a lot more of as the disc goes on. The song features a lot of eighth-note chugging on the guitar front and just seems to lack the frenetic energy that sparked the first two tracks. A Kiss style breakdown at the end works OK, but doesn't ramp up the energy level.

"Lie To Love Me" is followed by "Finally," which features a very similar riff and time signature. The placement of the two songs back-to-back wasn't a good move at all, and had me checking my watch a couple times.

Just when I was starting to get bored, the title track, "Cold Blooded Demon," charged out of the gate at a Motorhead gallop, with drummer Rob Baker giving the song the propulsion it needed. It's a great little three-and-a-half-minute ditty with one of my favorite guitar solos on the album.

And then, it's back to the mid-tempo chug on "Such A Disease," before we get to the album's best track, "A Dying Flame," which has an almost thrashy feel. I particularly enjoyed the squealing guitar fills and solos between the verses.

After that, we get the mid-tempo "Feel It Within," which is better than most of the other slow tracks because it doesn't rely on the same style of riffs, instead going for a more flowing approach that hews closely to the vocal line. Then another up-tempo rocker, "Bad Behavior," and the slowest song on the album, "So Far Away" close the disc out. Though it isn't the track I'd have picked to end the disc, I have to say that I like the southern rock vibe that occasionally shows up in this one.

Regardless of whether I liked the songs, I have to admit that they all sounded great on whatever system I listened to them with. Yetter's vocals are mixed perfectly with the rest of the band and each instrument is distinct, though sometimes I had to strain a bit to catch Keith Daigle's bass lines.

When Revmatic revs up the speed, "Cold Blooded Demon" really spreads its wings. It's during the disc's many slower periods that some of the fire seems to go out. Had the band put in a few more fast tracks, it would've been a great album — as it is, it's a perfectly adequate hard rock album.