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Ever since their third album, A Sultan's Ransom, people have been waiting for Cloven Hoof to make another good album, and we have largely waited in vain. It's not that the music of the latter-day band has been bad, exactly, it just is completely standard, pedestrian stuff that doesn't stand out. They were a great band with a great, classic NWOBHM sound back in the '80s, but it's been a loooong time since 1989, and all their subsequent stuff has a very pugilistic, US-Metal sound to it. This album is not different, with decent songwriting and decent riffs, but it sounds like songs anybody could have written.

Maybe it's the influence of George Call of Aska, who joined as their singer in 2015, because a lot of these songs sound a lot like Aska songs, and not just because of the sound of the vocals. However, on the subject of the vocals—what the hell is Call doing? He usually has an almost prototypical metal wail, but on this album he has replaced all his power and range with terrible, terrible screeching. Is he trying to sound tough? I don't know. All I know is this is an album of decent if unremarkable traditional metal songs spoiled by the hideous vocals of a guy who I would have called one of the better singers in the US underground. Inexplicable.