White Wizzard

Much like Toronto's Cauldron, you kind of know what you're getting into with L.A.'s White Wizzard at this point. Borderline cheeseball trad metal (or, depending on who you ask, total cheese ball trad metal), delivered with speed and passion, catchy choruses all over the place and a serious love of '80s hard rock melodies placed amongst the more dramatic, Savatage-ish fare. You just wish the songs were three minutes shorter, because these types of tossed-off good-time tunes, as decent as they are, don't need to be six or seven minutes long. The histrionics just hinder things (i.e., "Strike the Iron," which starts strong, but degenerates into parody); White Wizzard are at their best when things are streamlined and they're channelling the simpler side of trad or NWOBHM ("Kings of the Highway" or the late album trad perfection of "Storm Chaser"). When they try too hard to get smart (or add multiple guitar solos), it just doesn't add up. For example, album closer "The Sun Also Rises" would be a great deal more powerful as a four-minute tune instead of the nine-and-a-half-minute one it is.