Phantom Blue
Built To Perform

A very solid performance at their debut with Geffen for the 5 amazons of Hard & Heavy Phantom Blue who landed a hit at the wrong time (just for a change): it was the year 1993. Gigi, Michelle, Kim, Linda, and Karen furrow the tracks of their album with the tank of the god of metal ready to unleash hard hits when needed. Overall, a very successful mash-up of genres with this "Built to perform". A mash-up in which pieces of bone ended up but so be it, it turns out to be edible for those seeking uncompromising hard music and indigestible for those who do not accept roughness as the only means of communication.

They attracted me with their puffed up hair and their Californian origins, but I didn't know that, already with their '89 debut, I would find myself in front of 5 women devoted to a decidedly sharp and speed form of metal, only vaguely influenced by the local musical offer.

An improbable point of comparison, for the writer, are some tracks from Skid Row's "Slave to the grind", but the comparison should be taken with a grain of salt because here the heavy sound clearly dominates over the hard one.

I insistently recommend them to the metalheads I know who eventually agree with me. They are not disdained by rockers and glamsters either because they represent a valid alternative to the usual sounds.

I'll review the main features of the group and of "Built to perform". Feminine to the last drop of blood, in this noise of an album, our ladies have managed to best crystallize an enchanting voice, decidedly smooth like a perfectly groomed woman's skin and masculine in its bitterness and edginess, along with the technical and rhythmic skills of the rest of the band. The powerful thrust of bass and drums could have easily led Phantom Blue to share the stage with Pantera a few years later, as they were capable of imposing a marching troop in mission and action. Finally, spectacular are the rifts and patches in the guitar fabric that see the duo Meldrum - Kreuzer proving they learned the lesson taught by Friedman (Megadeth) at the time of the first album.

Overall an unexpected sound from a female quintet and, above all, very modern for the period (and certainly still today) that in tracks like "Nothing good" - energetic opener that immediately clarifies the ideas to first-time listeners-, Time to run - where the riffs are slapping and almost neoclassical -, "Better off dead" - the most hard rock of the set offered - represent tracks that must be listened to no matter what.

I have thrown it out here, you don't miss the chance to listen to a very valid band.