Heavy Metal Maniac doesn’t unfold as a sequence of songs so much as a burst of velocity divided into halves. Labeled Heavy and Metal, the album isn’t concerned with contrast or balance — it’s a framing device for excess. What Exciter present here isn’t refinement or structure. It’s acceleration sustained until exhaustion.
The record opens with “The Holocaust,” a brief instrumental that functions less as an introduction than a warning. The track doesn’t establish atmosphere or direction. It flashes by, tense and unresolved, clearing space for what follows without offering stability. Its purpose is procedural: motion begins, and there is no pause afterward.
That immediacy carries straight into “Stand Up and Fight.” Speed becomes the governing force, not as technique but as compulsion. The riffs race forward with little variation, relying on repetition and urgency rather than development. The song doesn’t build — it surges, driven by momentum that feels barely contained.
The title track, “Heavy Metal Maniac,” reinforces that posture rather than expanding it. Its central riff is sharp and narrow, cycling relentlessly as if refinement would only slow it down. The song doesn’t assert identity so much as demonstrate fixation. This is not heaviness as weight, but heaviness as insistence.
Side Heavy stretches that insistence to its limits. “Iron Dogs” and “Mistress of Evil” extend runtimes without introducing relief, relying on repetition and speed to maintain pressure. The riffs don’t evolve; they persist. Any sense of structure feels secondary to motion, as if stopping to organize would risk collapse.
Vocals throughout operate at the same pitch of urgency. Dan Beehler’s delivery is raw, high, and relentless, riding the riffs rather than shaping them. His voice doesn’t command the songs or frame their direction — it adds strain. The effect isn’t authority, but exposure.
Side Metal continues without reset. “Under Attack” and “Rising of the Dead” maintain the album’s fixation on velocity, offering no recalibration between halves. Even when tempo shifts slightly, the songs refuse to settle into groove or balance. Speed remains the organizing principle, applied until coherence begins to fray.
The album’s longest track, “Blackwitch,” doesn’t function as a centerpiece so much as a stress test. Its extended runtime amplifies the record’s central flaw and strength simultaneously: the inability — or refusal — to moderate. The song presses forward long past comfort, not to achieve grandeur, but to see how far momentum can be pushed before it breaks.
“Cry of the Banshee” closes the record without resolution. It doesn’t slow things down or reframe the album’s intent. It simply continues the surge until the tape runs out. The ending feels abrupt because the album never prepared for conclusion. It was never built to arrive anywhere.
Production reinforces that instability. The guitars are thin but piercing, the drums sharp and dry, the bass largely submerged beneath the rush. There’s little depth or separation in the mix. Everything presses forward at once, narrowing the soundstage until clarity becomes collateral damage.
What Heavy Metal Maniac ultimately captures isn’t mastery or influence, but disregard. Exciter aren’t disciplining speed or shaping it into something sustainable. They’re letting it run until it burns itself out. The album doesn’t resolve its aggression or turn it into doctrine. It expends it.
By the time it ends, Heavy Metal Maniac hasn’t evolved or stabilized. It hasn’t slowed to consolidate force. It simply stops — spent. What remains is residue: speed unchecked, motion without restraint, preserved at the point where control gives way.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia
Artist and event information courtesy of the band.
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