Dr. Mastermind - Dr. Mastermind

Frenetically paced songs, which never quite degenerated into tuneless thrash, were punctuated by high-octane and complex guitar breaks. After the release of their debut album, Castronovo joined Cacophony, and James left for Turbin. Rick Hosert and Pete Lachman were drafted in as replacements on drums and guitar, respectively, but this new line-up failed to find success.

"Huh? Who is Dr.Mastermind? ... yeah, I don't know either. Someone recommended this band to me, and even though I thought the name sounded like some sort of parody band, I trusted this person's word.

Well, Dr.Mastermind play good, fun old school speed/heavy metal.

This is comparable to perhaps Rust in Peace and earlier era Megadeth, with a vocalist closer to Udo from Accept, as for his voice - stylistically closer to early 80's Judas Priest.

The solos completely shred, the guitar tone is crisp, and solid riffs abound. In the epic The Villa (2631) there is a slew of nice neo-classical guitar work, and a very progressive sounding bridge using heavy delay for a surreal, evil sounding backdrop to another lead.

The drums are fast. Other than that - nothing really special to say about them except that there is a pretty good drum solo on "I Don't Wanna Die".

The lead guitar tone is better than most releases from this era, being crisp and cutting through the other instruments nicely when it's called for.

The majority of the choruses are very catchy, especially The Right Way. The songs are relatively formulaic however, (and you'll notice all but two are about the exact same length) albeit being rather well executed. The two songs that escape that are the only two that have any real depth, also. Hence my labeling this as "fun". It's nice to listen to every now and then, but it's not stellar, or something that gets me really enthralled.

Pros: Good, fun anytime kind of metal, really good guitar work, a number of catchy choruses, the songs The Right Way and The Villa (2631) ...

Cons: Largely formulaic, lacks depth most of the time, I personally don‘t like the vocalist much ...

I think fans of speed/heavy metal would have to like this. Or if you just want some "fun" metal, check it out."
- Reveiw by BloodIronBeer for metal-archives.com

Dr. Mastermind released 1986 on Roadrunner Records

• Dr. Mastermind (aka Matt McCourt) - Vocals, Bass
• Ronn Chick - Rhythm Guitars
• Kurt James - Guitars
• Deen Castronovo - Drums

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