Power Game

Probably Marshall Law's finest hour overall, 1993's Power Game featured some of the sharpest, smartest, most memorable tunes of the group's ill-appreciated career. Too heavy for traditional metal, too lightweight for power metal, songs like "Chain of Youth," "Another Generation," and the especially memorable "Searching for Paradise" nevertheless sounded exactly suited to the band's particular talents. Elsewhere, "No Justice" and "Psychodrama" are a little more ho-hum, and, admittedly, "No Justice" makes for a pretty clumsy attempt at a power ballad, but not so clumsy that it entirely ruins the album's energetic momentum. As for those never-failing comparisons to Judas Priest, they're exaggerated as usual, since Marshall Law's biggest similarity to the British metal legends is probably possessing an absolutely brilliant dual-guitar team in Dave Martin and Andy Southwell. And even though demonic closer "Leviathan" unquestionably has a "Painkiller" feel to it, the song is so awesome on its own terms, it's hard to complain, really. Influence and plagiarism are quite different things, after all, and Power Game is most certainly steeped in the first, not the second.