HIS is the full-length debut from a five-piece Pinoy group that’s been around since the late ‘90s. Valley of Chrome started as a hardcore band which attracted a punk audience with their slamming sonic assault. Several personnel changes and three EP’s later, the band puts out their accomplished take on alternative metal.

Love and Devotion isn’t a valentine card for swooning lovers, unless you’re a masochist. At the start, the sounds of a beating heart and heavy breathing may lead to false impressions that it’s music for foreplay. 47 seconds later, Valley of Chrome sends you on a complete detour into the wilds of neo-metal.

It isn’t new music by any stretch. The band owes its collective influences to Iron Maiden, ‘80s Metallica, Guns and Roses as well as such recent innovators as Killswitch Engage, Atreyu and Shadows Fall. On Love and Devotion, the 11 tracks manage to evoke fond memories of the very best of Metal Blade and Nuclear Blast.

Alternative metal grew out of hardcore which is a nastier cousin of ‘70s punk. Today, new metal itself has so many illegitimate offshoots with names like death metal, doom metal, Black metal, etc. The splinter is the product of constant experimentation by rock musicians to go beyond mere technique to deliver hard rock’s mean punch.

On their debut, Valley of Chrome shows off both finesse and brutality. The backbeat chugs along like a runaway train while the twin guitars whip out majestic melodies. The vocals shift between monster growls and calm pleadings in the face of doom. These yin-yang counterpoints should appease metal diehards even as they appeal to kids venturing out of their Top 40 comfort zone.

Loud as the tunes may be, there’s craftsmanship in the riffs coaxed by guitarists Jethro Mendoza and Tatel Marcelino. "Breaking The Barriers of Frustration" begins as an acoustic prelude before breaking into a fast and furious rocker. "When Everything Turns To Dust" plugs doom metal’s whispered terror to Heart’s "Barracuda" rhythms. Once past the ungainly opening riffage, "Conquering Hades" will have every Van Halen fan jumping for joy in air-guitar frenzy. Across the hyperactive rhythmic crash, "Girls With The Softest Lips Lash Out The Most Violent Words" sports a mini-symphony of swooping harmonic tones stolen from the pop-metal chordbook.

So our vocalist twists himself into the Devil then swings to a spurned lover in a kind of double-tracked doublespeak. It’s not only a fitting tribute to the (singing) tradition of alternative metal but also an appropriate device to reflect the drama in each track. The dark vocals apparently depict some unknown evil force (perhaps sin, insanity or even death) luring the defenseless human to its side. To make a stand, the "human" voice responds: ‘Our serenity is in peril/We will heed the trumpet’s call’; or, ‘Tomorrow, this will be over, these shadows reaching out to me.’ At one point, the sweet album title even gets shouted out like a curse.

Love and Devotion is a tough metal record. Just keep an open mind and the pleasures of Valley of Chrome will descend upon you.

The next band scene is reportedly at hand. You’d expect that a ‘70s Pinoy rock tribute band would be just around the corner the way some coño rockers did during the ‘90s band explosion.

Well, Protein Shake looks and sounds like they want to give the claim a fair shake in this day and age. Fair is quite a modest description for their run for the crown because their self-titled debut also throbs with punk attitude and metal crunch. It’s Pinoy rock retrofitted for an attention deficit audience glued on cable TV and 5-in-1 movie collection on pirated DVD.

Face it, Pinoy rock stopped on its tracks a quarter century ago and the only happening revival these days appears to be a tribute to a decade-old pop band. Protein Shake takes up the cudgels of keeping the old flame alive. Their modus operandi is to skip the nostalgia and update Pinoy rock for a contemporary spin in the 00s.

"Ledez" jumpstarts the record with descending chords and pumping backbeat reminiscent of something from The Dawn. The second cut, "Leech," is where the real action gets going; it carries the swagger of Juan de la Cruz retooled for the new millennium. "Nagtatanong" harks back to the volume of Anakbayan by way of Wolfgang while "Shake Your Booty" has funk and groove to spare. Vocalist Tutti Caringal makes full use of phrasing and a knowing sense of self-importance that bring to mind Basti Artadi.

The band deals with vignettes from everyday life. "Malas Mo" expresses ageless truism in love and loss in: "Walang ibang masisi kundi ang aking sarili/Sana’y pagbigyan mo nang muli/Muling buhayin pag-ibig natin." "Wasak" intones "Tanging bote ng alak ang iyong kaibigan/At ang droga ay nasa iyong bulsa/Sige humatak ka nang humatak hanggang mawasak." In "Rock", our main man declaims: ‘Sex and drugs and rock and roll/Oh, no, you don’t know, with the shadows lurking in your head and the stranger lying in your bed.’ Pop psychology from Pinoy rockers can be a shaky deal, but it’s way cooler than the laughably inept lyrical poesy of so-called singer-songwriters of the moment.

And oh, the record is sexy right at the sleeves. Nubile nymphets in various stages of undress scamper all over the page. The inner spread even catches them down to their summer sleepwear. It’s enough to get the most susceptible male to want some stroking and protein shaking.

Two minor quibbles, though. Guitar solos seem clipped to a bare minimum when in certain instances, they could have stepped up to their stairway to the skies. Also, a slow acoustic killer would have given Tutti the chance to present his blues side and the guitarist spare space to roam. As the record goes, its tracks more or less operate on the same rock-till-you-drop zone.

Such single-minded vibe may not sit well with the loud and fast canon of today’s young listeners. Still, Protein Shake, the album, has enough bopping going on to put it on a league of its own.