Massacre
2014
1. Thunder & Steele
2. Metal Avenger
3. Sacred Blade
4. Ironborn
5. Steelcrusader
6. Fyres In The Nighte
7. Die By The Hammer
8. Child On Fyre
9. One Will Survive
10. Servants Of Metal
My first experience with the band Stormwarrior is a pretty ease one to remember. Back when going to ProgPower used to be a highlight for me I caught this band on the 2010 edition. I wasn't really familiar with them at the time, but I looked them up as they were on the bill with other bands I wanted to see. They seemed a little bit typical power metal to me, but I liked them well enough and they even had a song I loved in the track Heading Northe. They didn't quite blow me away, but they performed well live when I eventually saw them and the guys in the band seemed nice enough. Really this is the kind of album I give a shot when not a lot of bands I Love are releasing stuff and I feel like something new.
Well, one thing Thunder & Steele doesn't do is waste time as things start off extremely speedy from the start. There's only a short and quick paced drum intro before we dive right into maximum speed. From the start I'm reminded of Kai Hansen Helloween or particularly Gamma Ray as the vocals are similarly nasally and the music just blazes ahead in speed metal fashion. Hibria is another one that comes to mind with this not so subtle approach to power metal. The thing with the sound here is it's not at all varied. If you want nothing but a speed metal assault this is competent, but there's not really vocal range or enough creativity to keep my attention. Basically, this comes off as very middle of the road power metal without the songwriting ability, range, or vocal ability to propel it any kind of real recognition. When I say a band is typical power metal this is exactly the kind of band I think of, but since there's really no stand out songs at all the album falls even a little below that. The only thing that separates them is the one trick of never relenting and that only gets you so far. Of course, it's worth noting that the one really mid-paced track here, Child Of Fyre, is kind of boring so maybe that's why they try to sell themselves almost entirely on speed.
Basically, if you like your metal completely over the top speed than this might be worth a look, but I bet you've heard better in even that regard. Personally, I found the lack of variation grew a bit tiresome quickly. The band is talented enough and the they play with ferocity, but the predictability of these songs is very high. This is competent enough, but as songwriters I find the band to be totally average with only moments of something better and none of those moments really make it to this album. Almost all of the songs here sound like a slight variation of a very obvious idea.
Highlights: Not really. It's mostly a bunch of comparable, inside the box, speed metal.
Rating - 2.0/5
No comments:
Post a Comment