Xalt – Under The Ruins – 1990

This is the second album from Xalt. The band had one lineup change between albums with Randy Carlson replaced Steve Davis on Bass. It’s another commercial sounding Metal album and falls right in line with their first album. The album was not well received however and all the reviews I read criticized the lyrics and engineering. I do agree the engineering was not great and I admit that I greatly enhanced it for our YouTube videos. As for the lyrics personally they sound like all the other metal lyrics of the era so I don’t understand that complaint. All in all sounds like a solid Metal effort. It was reissued in 2021 by Retroactive Records and included a bonus track which I have included with our YouTube playlist. Strangely the reissue also came with trading cards. I don’t remember seeing that before.

Tracklist
1 – Through The Night – 3:44
2 – Forgiven – 2:46
3 – Under The Ruins – 3:59
4 – Waste Your Life Away – 3:29
5 – Lost Without You – 4:05
6 – Piercing The Darkness – 4:47
7 – The Fortress – 2:45
8 – Wounded Heart – 4:45
9 – The Kingdom Within – 2:50
10 – Lift Him Up – 3:32
11 – Take A Look (2021 Bonus Track) – 2:25

Credits
Randy Carlson – Bass
Allan Chase – Engineer, Keyboards, Background Vocals
Scott Doerfler – Lead and Background Vocals
James Erdman – Producer, Guitars
Todd Gleason – Drums
Andie Leheay – Assistant Engineer
Carolyn Neito – Background Vocals
Joey Powers – Producer
Kevin J. Wessner – Executive Producer