3 Inches Of Blood has arrived to tread on the bleached bones of those exhausted genres. A band to unite the tribes of mall rats, skaters, punks and bikers under one banner. Because, after years of a steady de-evolution of the founding tenets of heavy music, to today's ears, 3 Inches Of Blood's ADVANCE AND VANQUISH could not be more fresh. Make that banner the skull and crossbones, because the Vancouver-based metal band 3 Inches of Blood write about pirates. And swords. And, for good measure, warring cyborgs from the future. But most importantly, the band write about heavy metal. The best way to describe 3 Inches of Blood is "reverential" - essentially, take everything great about heavy music before 1985, and go from there. Which means the shrieking vocal assault of Rob Halford, the epic guitars and storytelling of Iron Maiden, the pirate theme of Running Wild, and, most importantly, the lasting influence of the British New Wave of Heavy Metal. 3 Inches of Blood is a band that knows their Diamond Head from their Motorhead.