You know what made us pick up this record? It is this statement made by the metaller-in-chief over at Tygers of Pan Tang. And it says: “This is a brand new Heavy Metal album from us, steeped in the late 70s, flavoured from the 80s, and ready for consumption right now!” Sold, the RMR crew cannot withstand that kind of swagger. Electrifyed just landed in our review pipe, no questions asked. Welcome to the sump!
And how could we resist? The good ol’ tygers of the realm were all around us for many a decade. More precisely, they have been dabbling in metallurgy since 1978. And whilst this band and yours truly crossed paths from time to time over many years, they somehow never made it onto this zine yet. Who would have thought that? Yet another candidate for n00b-ers of the RMR realm. Welcome to the elite group of well-established newbies over a the office tower. You have been sorely missed.
And once them electriciens let loose, the 80’s are indeed alive again. I mean, Electrifyed could be name-called to death and back. Iron Maiden, Saxon, Lion’s Share, all immediately come to mind once Rise Up! lets loose. And it’s all just raw power and Heavy Metal from this gang. Guitars, bass, reasonably meaty drums, and high-pitched vocals kinda akin to Krokus‘ Marc Storace, without a shred of growls far and wide. This is what greets you on this disk. Albeit that you’ll find more Hard Rock baked into this metal pie than is probably good for it.
And for once, I’m glad Electryfied did not seek the comfort of Sunset Boulevard. Instead, the band went for Heavy Metal’s jugular in an unsophisticated, NWOBHM1 fashion that we have grown to love. This is the genuine item, not some fraud trying to imitate what others concocted before. You’ll find plenty of good material on this smörgåsbord of heavily metallic items. Yet, all them pieces seem to be at pains to stand out form the crowd in a – I don’t know – wildly seducing oldish Iron Maiden way. And perhaps that feature ain’t really baked into their metal DNA, but you get my drift.
So, what shakes or not on Electrifyed? In no particular order, the RMR crew truly fancied The Nail as one of the standout tracks. The old-school riffing, the majestic, slow-motion lyrics delivered with gusto really gave us them vibes of the past. Even the cheese-dripping pathos of the monologue with samples at the beginning finally found our good graces. The meaty stomp of Dark Skies at the end of the tracklist will get you more of that mana you crave. Nothing new in structure and arrangement, mind you. But this is sturdy Hard Rock work in an electric metal jacket. The somewhat generic, yet neatly paced Forevermore and the Saxon-infused Powers That Be took their sweet time to earn them brownie points. But the electryc motion and boundless energy really got on our good side.
Yet, strangely, Electrifyed, the title track, didn’t quite impress us. Even if the American vox at the beginning tried very hard to get our attention and the injection of those slight doomy vibes and the stellar solo did actually make us look up a few times. Maybe ToPT should have spoken to the maidens’ Eddie. He has some serious background in eletrification, now, hasn’t he?
So, where does all that metallic goodness leave us? Electrifyed sent us a mixed bag of goodies. The band didn’t deliver overly stormy wares and those didn’t jolt us into madly unhinged headbanging. Instead, they sent us letters from the metal backbone of long-gone times. Wares from eons ago, when Saxon was fully in charge and Cirith Ungol had it going for them. In other words, Tygers of Pan Tang delivered a record exactly as announced earlier.
Neat Heavy Metal piece. I hope they’ll be back with more anytime soon.
Record Rating: 7/10 | Label: Mighty Music | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 11 September 2026
- Meaning, New Wave of British Heavy Metal.-↩