ACCESS DENIED – Touch Of Evil
- Posted on 17-10-2012
Female fronted classic heavy metal here from Polish quintet Access Denied as "Touch of Evil" is their second album. Originally self-released, Pitch Black picked it up for wider distribution and tacked on a video for "One Night" as a bonus. These 8 main tracks (plus 1:59 Intro) aspire to the Priest and Maiden philosophy- hammering home key riffs, locked and loaded drumming and a boatload of high pitch vocal acrobatics. Agnieszka Sulich has a naturally high register, sort of sister companion to Doro Pesch on "One Night" and the heads down gallop monster "My Dreams".
The songwriting doesn’t excite me, it is very one-two crunch based, and really the singing can be hit or miss too depending on the song (sometimes too dramatic, at other points matching up perfectly). The closing title track contains beautiful acoustic guitar work and these sweeping keyboard parts that are slightly symphonic in nature- an area I hope Access Denied explore for their next record as this six minute cut is the best of the record.
In order for traditional heavy metal to succeed in my eyes you need equal parts creativity, performance, and songwriting to match up almost like a perfect chemical compound. Access Denied have some of the tools but not quite all of them at this point. So for now, "Touch of Evil" should be placed in the potential category, as I still think Crystal Viper is the best act from Poland in that traditional power vein.