Review by Vladimir on July 23, 2023.

Time for some good old heavy metal, where I’ll be covering an Austrian band Speed Limit. Although I have not heard of these guys before, they have been around since 1979, releasing only one album Unchained in 1986 before splitting up in 1994, but they reformed in 2008. I’ll be reviewing their fifth full-length album Cut A Long Story Short, which was released on June 16th, 2023 via the label NRT-Records. 

The majority of this album is songwriting that’s consisted of your traditional catchy heavy metal riffing which vary between down-picking or galloping, drums that beside some occasional galloping are mostly your typical mid-tempo rhythm drumming and let’s not forget the high-range singing vocals. Aside from the usual formulas, there are other things such as tender clean guitar moments that appear on 'New Horizon' and some rock and roll riffing on 'The Lady Is On Fire'. This album doesn’t provide that much other than some standard and simple heavy metal, yet there are a few things that I feel should be addressed. Despite the fact that this is a heavy metal band, I personally feel like it’s not “heavy” enough, rather soft and lightweight. In some ways the songs and their overall execution feel somewhat soft and they lack any required strength of steel that would really make you go crazy. I honestly didn’t feel the heaviness of the riffs and the power of the choruses, because they come off as very anticlimactic or heavily lackluster, and at times very stereotypical. I don’t know if this issue is due to the album’s very soft sound production or the songwriting in general, because I am just not able to grasp anything that this album provided. I understand that these guys have been around since the late 70’s, but that still doesn’t mean that they can pull off a flawless performance just because they’re older or more experienced. I can tell that these guys are able to sit down and write a song, but here it seems that they were anything but able to write a memorable and powerful song that should really crawl under your skin. Personally, as I finished with the main tracks on this album, I didn’t even bother to check out the rest of it, which were four bonus tracks, including some live tracks. 

To “cut a long story short”, if this album should be described from start to finish, I think the perfect summary would be “all filler no killer” or as George Carlin would describe it “soft rock, that lame ass weak non-threatening suburban white boy junk played by bands called Men Without Testicles”. I feel really sorry that this album didn’t amuse me to the slightest bit because I really love oldschool heavy metal and even some new generation bands that follow the traditional heavy metal route. I honestly think that you should definitely check out their debut album Unchained from 1986, which is in my opinion better and a much pleasant listening experience, because if you do check it out, you’ll notice that the difference between their debut album and their new album is light and day. I would honestly say that you should skip Cut A Long Story Short if the first track doesn’t get your attention, or stay and listen if you really think that there is anything worthy of mention. 

Rating: 6 out of 10