Band:	Metal Church
Album:	XI
Style:	Heavy metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	March 25, 2016
A review by:	ScreamingSteelUS

01. Reset
02. Killing Your Time
03. No Tomorrow
04. Signal Path
05. Sky Falls In
06. Needle And Suture
07. Shadow
08. Blow Your Mind
09. Soul Eating Machine
10. It Waits
11. Suffer Fools

XI proves Metal Church still worthy of its name - perhaps more worthy than it has been in many years.

Mike Howe is back where he belongs, heading this beast of a band with his raspy snarl. All is not quite right with the world, as most of the classic line-up still lies outside this latest incarnation. In particular, I still miss Kirk Arrington, whose drumming drew me to Metal Church in the first place, but at least Howe brings the band one step closer to that ancient Pax Metallica of the 1980s. His voice has aged reasonably well. Howe isn't Dio, and the strain on his lungs and vocal cords occasionally peeks through, but on XI he proves himself still very capable of fronting Metal Church; not only do I feel that his voice suits the band much better than Ronny Munroe's, but Howe simply has a better grasp of singing mechanics and how to add the proper force and feeling to Metal Church's music.

The album unfolds smoothly with a steady stream of upbeat, hard-riffing heavy metal songs written in a very familiar vein, but bedecked with the trappings of thrash. Mixing the roguish bravado of metal's brashest traditions with the darker undertones known to infiltrate Metal Church's work, XI deftly avoids falling into the ruts and repetition of many a straightforward heavy metal band. Stylish solos on songs like "No Tomorrow" and "Signal Path" add a lot of life and personality, and the riffs' constant search for untrodden paths reminds us of how Kurt Vanderhoof's and Craig Wells's unpredictable guitar work helped make Metal Church such a reputable name in the first place.

"Sky Falls In" abruptly slashes the speed with a dark, crushing swing; when the chorus pushes in with an expansive, open atmosphere, the song solidifies itself as one of the album's major draws. "Needle And Suture" picks back up and drives the album through to its second half with the most explicitly thrash writing on XI, but the effects of "Sky Falls In" continue to ripple, and the album fundamentally changes its structure into a much more meditative, calculated, and down-tempo journey afterwards. As is tradition, the album does lose momentum in the latter half, but with the foreboding "It Waits" and the stygian vivacity of "Suffer Fools" rounding out the tracklist, XI bows out as volcanically as it introduced itself, perhaps in even more spectacular fashion.

When I first listened to XI, my only thoughts were of how the album stacked up to the classic Mike Howe material. With repeated sessions, however, XI makes a powerful impression in its own right, and not just as a reflection of what Metal Church was or could be. Getting Howe involved was the best decision Metal Church has made in a long time - but the great album here before us stems not only from him, but from a combination of songwriting and strong performances that establishes Metal Church as a band that still has a lot to say and doesn't have to live on the memories of its classic albums.