WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND contains powerful guitars with elements of heavy metal with a Bon Jovi-esque chorus. Not a bad way to start an album, considering that Bon Jovi are widely recognised as one of the leading stadium rock bands in the world. The power of the opening track continues on LETTER TO GOD, the title track beginning with a chugging guitar riff and what can only be described as a headbanger’s paradise. It is simply a classic heavy metal song with ballsy, all out everything.

DENY is a Def Leppard style ballad and slows the tempo of the album down from the opening tracks. Featuring a classic guitar solo, XYZ continue the quality of the album on this more mellow track. DENY soon becomes a distant memory however when TOUCH THE SKY begins, signalling a return to the power of the opening tracks before melting into a ballad-esque chorus. This is a mix of heavy and melodic rock that contrasts nicely with all the opening tracks.

RAINY DAY begins acoustically before bursting into heavy guitars, similar to next track TANGO. There is nothing particularly memorable about these opening tracks, other than the power of the music.

ALL I’M ASKING is a ballad similar to DENY, with XYZ again proving their ability to write melodic songs. They show a definite willingness to experiment on this track and don’t disappoint with the end product.

BURN IT UP is a much more fast and heavy song that never lets up, just what you’d expect from a song with such a title. Full of energy and power.

INSIDE OUT features yet another acoustic intro, and again contrasts from its predecessor. It later ventures into a more powerful guitar sound, effectively merging two contrasting styles of music, namely melodic and heavy rock.

The first purely groove orientated song on the album comes in the shape of WHAT KEEPS ME LOVING YOU, reminiscent of melodic 80’s rock like Whitesnake and Reo Speedwagon. Next track TELL ME is a fine example of XYZ using the mellow intro as a basis for what comes later in the song. It is used as a stepping stone to a more powerful climax, in this case a Kashmir like guitar riff.

Closing track UNITED has an intro that would sound good on a thrash album and again shows the experimental side of XYZ as they refuse to settle into one particular genre.

Combine elements of thrash, heavy metal and melodic rock with a classic 80’s feel and then throw in some emotive ballads and you might just come out with ‘Letter To God’, a truly superb album. The band experiments with a wide range of genres on this album, the result being that they could easily fit into any genre they wanted, they simply have that astounding ability to write a combination of greatly varied tracks. Ballad DENY contrasts completely with a fiery BURN IT UP, and such a creative and imaginative set of tracks can make for nothing less than an awesome album, simply outstanding.

XYZ Website: http://www.xyzmusic.com/

Review by Jonathan Brown