It's entirely too hard to be original these days, but there's always the potential for a band to at least try their hand at being unique. And with 'Pedal To The Metal', their debut release for Century Media, that's exactly what Blessed By A Broken Heart have managed to do. With the extremely odd pairing of 80's thrash riffing and 80's glam style, mixed in with good doses of modern metalcore screaming, this is unlike anything you've likely heard before.
Kicking things off with a wicked acoustic intro that happens to have some pretty sick leads, the band opens the album with a song called 'She-wolf'. Just don't let the title fool you, as this isn't your uncle's hair metal. The vocals kick in with screams that would sound more at home on any given metalcore album, than an album from the likes of Bon Jovi or Poison. However, the chorus is just the opposite, with the straight up pop soaked chorus and gang backing vocals that were a staple of the 80's hair scene.
'She-wolf' easily sets the tone for the remainder of the album, as the band doesn't stray entirely too far from that formula. But again, unlike other bands that seem to write 12 versions of the same song and call it an album, Blessed By A Broken Heart manages to avoid severe repetition with the shredding rhythms and some wicked guitar leads courtesy of the gutiar team of "Shred Sean" and Robbie Heart. keyboardist Simon Fox also helps to keep the songs from becoming stale with the nuances he adds to each individual track.
Taking it to an even more awkward extreme on the third track, "Move Your Body", the band incorporates elements that you'd only expect to hear in some random disco/techno track. But the chugging riffs and more than adequate leads are still present, making for a rather interesting listen. The band returns to form on the majority of the remaining tracks, but fortunately each song is more than catchy enough to make you want to play out the entire album. And lyrically, this is about as close to 80's carefree lyrical themes as you're gonna get without dusting off those old LP's that haven't been touched since then.
