White Wizzard The Devil's Cut

2013, THE DEVIL'S CUT by White Wizzard can best be filed under guilty pleasures. It would be really easy to pan down White Wizzard as some 80's metal parody on Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. There are even some slight traces of glam/hair metal in the vein of Motley Crue. Every guitar lick, drum fill and vocal line comes from the grand book of heavy metal written by the likes of Dio, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest almost thirty years ago. This combined with the somewhat muffled production brings you straight back to the golden age of spandex. Yet despite the enormous pile of typical heavy metal clichés, THE DEVIL'S CUT is a wickedly entertaining album to listen to. White Wizzard is funny in the same way your average Steven Seagal or Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks are funny. John Leon and his musical partners in crime pull it off with conviction and for some reason they succeed where many of their German and Italian counterparts fail in creating a genuine 80's metal trip.