Hell To Pay

In the early 2000's I was starting to make a return to heavy metal after stepping away from those bands throughout the 90's. It was great to return to those bands that I'd loved throughout the 80's, and it was cool to see bands like Dio and Maiden kind of catch some attention again. For me, it seemed that metal was starting to make a resurgence and I was excited for it. One of the 80's bands that was supposedly going back to their roots at the time was Dokken.

There was a bit of hype for the 2004 release of Hell To Pay from Dokken. I hadn't paid attention to the band since 1987 when they released the excellent Back For The Attack, so I had missed out on all of their stumbles through the 90's, but Hell To Pay was being touted as a return to form for Don Dokken and company so I grabbed a download off of WinMX or Soulseek or whatever file sharing program I was using at the time. I thought it was a decent album at the time, not too terribly exciting but okay enough that I would pull it out once every couple of years for a spin.

When it was announced earlier this year that Hell To Pay was going to be released on vinyl for the first time, I got a bit excited and quickly ordered a copy...even though I hadn't bothered to listen to the album over the past 10 years. Revisiting this record now, it falls a bit flat. Sure it starts out with a few good songs on side a, and it is just enough to get you excited that this album might be worth it, but by the time we are halfway through side b I'm checking to see if this thing is almost finished. There are just too many slower and mid-paced songs and it starts be a slog. So while I was initially excited to rush out and buy this record, now I'm kind of shrugging my shoulders and thinking "meh".

Only 1,000 pressed of Hell To Pay, with 500 on red and 500 on green colored vinyl.