Zero Down - No Limit To The Evil

Published December 08 2014

*=Staff's pick	Return Of The Godz No Limit To The Evil Devils Thorn Cold Winters Night* Leche Di Tigre Phantom Host* Suicide Girl* Steve McQueen Two Ton Hammer* Black Rhino

Genre	Heavy Metal	Mark Hawkinson	Vocals
Tracks	10	Lenny Burnett	Guitar
Running time	41 Min.	Matt Fox	Guitar
Label	Minotauro Records	Ron E. Banner	Bass
Release	15 December 2014	Chris Gohde	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboard
Producer	Martin Feveyear
Similar artists	---

This is Zero Down's 4th full-length release and these Seattle metallers have been active since 2002, although their debut album wasn't released until 2005. I had personally never heard one single tone or chord coming out of this group until I laid my hands on No Limit To The Evil a few weeks ago. Although I was a little incredulous when I first started to listen to this one and indeed was far from going berserk at that point, this record really got to me eventually.

It's like the music is coming straight out of the 80's, but naturally with a slightly different overall sound picture. It really comes out as an expression of traditional heavy metal and the result is by far greater than what most retro bands in this day and age are putting out. The songs are generally precise and the harmonies of the lead guitar is kind of a trademark for this unit. Mark Hawkinson's vocal performance isn't close to being impeccable and therefore it of course doesn't belong to the greatest voices of metal. Nonetheless is he able to control the situation just fine and comes out well-suited together with the music.

Most songs are consistent and performed in mid-tempo or slightly faster and the outcome isn't really heavy or hard-nosed, nor mellow or lame. Frankly I don't see any major differences in comparison to most bands of this type of music and Zero Down's general performance isn't specifically packed with originality either. It doesn't really feature elements of something extraordinary, but nevertheless the song material comes out really strong in the end and with that in hand, they have definitely built themselves a massive advantage in competition with the lion's share of the bands in this vein.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	4	6	6	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe