Feeling like they were cloned from the very DNA of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, 3 Inches of Blood continue to seek pure metal perfection on their fifth album, Long Live Heavy Metal.

Paying homage to the driving aggression of bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, the Canadian metal monsters pay tribute to the classic metal acts of yesteryear with such loving precision and craftsmanship that it's easy to forget that you're not actually listening to an album from the '70s.

A lot of the credit for this is owed to singer Cam Pipes, whose soaring wail instantly helps to transport listeners to an era when sleeveless shirts and studded leather bracelets roamed the Earth without even a shred of irony.

As the genre grows and bands continue to explore the furthest reaches of extreme music, it sometimes feels as if metal has become more of an academic pursuit than the act of pure, sonic defiance that it started out as.

While change and growth are almost always a good thing, it's refreshing to have an album like Long Live Heavy Metal to make us take a step back and think about where all of this came from in the first place.