Mad Max Heavy Metal + In Concert EP Review
Mad Max
Heavy Metal + In Concert EP
ROAR
2025
There’s something special about revisiting a record that never tried to be trendy in the first place. Mad Max’s “Heavy Metal” has always felt like a real snapshot of when the genre meant leather jackets, loud amps, and zero apologies. I was a little late to Mad Max back in the day, it didn’t quite make it to my area until around 85/86 and even then, all I had was dubbed tapes from the tape trading game. There still wasn’t a lot of info on the band, so it was one of those bands/albums that I just enjoyed and let it be.
This new remastered reissue from ROAR doesn’t polish away the original spirit, it merely sharpens it. Everything appears to hit harder, clearer, and meaner, but the heart of the original recording is left completely intact. The guitars feel thicker and more alive this time around, with riffs that bite instead of blur together. The low end and the drums still leave a little to be desired, but I’m spoiled nowadays. This remaster doesn’t sterilize the music, whatsoever. It just brings everything forward, like pulling dust off an old blade and realizing it’s still razor sharp.
Where this reissue really earns its place on the shelf is the inclusion of the legendary In Concert 7”. These live cuts are pure, unfiltered Heavy Metal in its natural habitat - loud, raw, and hungry. You can practically feel the cramped room, the sweat in the air, and the band pushing their amps to the breaking point. There’s no studio trickery here, just honest-to-God Metal played by a band that understood volume was a weapon and energy was everything. I’d be hard pressed to praise the remastering of these tracks here though, there’s still leftover hisses and limitations, but I’m sure that’s due to age and lack of better originals to work with, but the spirit is still alive and well.
If you don’t already own this record, there’s never been a better time to experience it the way it was meant to be heard - loud, proud, and unapologetically heavy. This new remaster features unreleased photos, a comic, new liner notes and it’s also being offered on CD/Vinyl again. This is the version to get if you don’t want to sell your soul for the originals.