Band:	R.U.S.T. (CYP)
Album:	Forged In The Fire Of Metal
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	August 2011

01. The Thunder Rolls
02. Metal Child
03. We Are Rock N Roll
04. Phoenix In The Night
05. In The Streets Of Rock N Roll
06. Lady Of The Lake
07. Straight To The Top
08. Queen Of The Amazons
09. The Beginning
10. Forged In The Fire Of Metal

If I had a dollar for every time I've seen this problem arise, I'd have like...50 dollars. Cool riffs, horrendous vocals. Granted, with many bands, the cool riffs make up for the shit vocals, this isn't the case with R.U.S.T. - their riffs aren't that cool. In fact, you'd need some extremely awesome riffs in order to make up for these shouty attempts at singing.

I guess this band is making some sort of attempt to be Manowar. It's your pretty basic power-drenched traditional heavy metal. Quasi-epic guitar work, some failing attempt at epic vocals. Actually, after closer inspection, there's nothing about this album that's really all that good. It seems you can pass off any type of boring, derivative garbage if your vocals are distractingly bad enough. Perhaps these guys should have tried to pull off some extreme-power metal/hardcore hybrid, as this guys talents seem to lie a lot closer to shouting into the mic than anything else. The most troubling question of all is; who told this guy he was good? Either he sounds significantly better live, or there's some bizarre friendship dynamics going on, in which case he's managed to scare the rest of the band into submission.

Good side of the album? Well, forget everything I said about "cool riffs", "listenable riffs" would have been far more apt. There's nothing particularly great about them, just generic, run o' the mill heavy-power metal stuff. I wish there was a better description, but if asked to describe this album in retrospect, the only thing I could think of would be; "some dude shouting in my ear while a band tries to play Manowar in the background."