Label: Mighty Music
Release date: 6. 9. 2024
Production: Nick Jennison
Album length: 48.17 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
Blitzkrieg are a British heavy metal outfit belonging to the movement abbreviated as N.W.O.B.H.M. That puts their birth right at the very start of the eighties. They put out their first single in 1981, and in 1985 came the debut album “A Time Of Change”, considered a cult classic of the movement that also gave us, among others, Iron Maiden and Saxon. Given how metal trends were shifting, that debut landed a little too late, and then it took a full ten years for the follow-up, “Unholy Trinity”, to arrive, in a period that was seriously unkind to old-school metal. Blitzkrieg did pick up some attention thanks to the cover of their namesake classic, which Metallica tackled back then and still do today (you can find their version on the compilation “Garage Days Inc”).
But the quality stayed. Despite the cult status. The near-invisibility. Even later on. Thanks to the unshakable vocalist Brian Ross, who, through plenty of lineup shuffles, is still the only original member of the band to this day. Pretty much its key piece! His vocals are almost impossible to reproduce; you can only get close. So that element of originality, especially given Brian’s tone and approach, is still intact in 2024. And let’s be straight about it: it suits him great in his mature years.
If we rewind a bit, the band’s previous studio album, “Judge Not!” (2018), wasn’t exactly convincing and sounded a lot softer than you’d want. It flirts with hard rock elements. That era was rounded off by the EP “Loud And Proud”, where the band stuck to the direction of “Judge Not!”. Well, what the latest release, the bluntly titled “Bliztkrieg”, brings is a turn back toward “Theatre of the Damned”. Even more, it ties the band straight back to the year it was born, 1981. Back to the roots, in other words.
From here on there’s no need to philosophize much, because Brian and the rest of the garrison of the new Blitzkrieg have delivered an excellent new album that hits with straight-up honesty, firing on all cylinders of high-octane, old-school metal burn. Occult and gloomy enough, while on the other hand the production isn’t overly polished. In short: bang on! The ideas are nicely varied too, so the album brings a solid dose of theatrical dynamics, a story unfolding on the wings of a highly dramatic, pompous charge. The ‘bang on’ label is earned by the opening smasher You Won’t Take Me Alive, the ‘occult’ one right after it by the brilliant, murky The Spider. Ross simply needs compositions built like the dominant phrases of the new album to let his vocals shine at full intensity. And that’s exactly what “Blitzkrieg” delivers. From start to finish. In a good 48 minutes. Brilliant, concise, a herald of old-school metal, as close to the primal source of metal as you can possibly get.
The band doesn’t let up in the sparkle of its solutions even in the mid-eight passages, which are seasoned with inventive modulations and venomous guitar soloing. The ebb and flow of moods is outstanding. With a build toward hugely catchy, grabby choruses. Amid all the ‘hyped-up’ junk of studio ‘click and paste’, it’s a real pleasure to listen to an album that sounds so perfectly ‘analog’ in 2024, as the comeback record of the classic Blitzkrieg. With a title that says it all!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. You Won’t Take Me Alive
2. The Spider
3. Dragon’s Eye
4. If I Told You
5. Vertigo
6. Above The Law (Pull The Trigger Part 3)
7. I Am His Voice
8. The Night He Came Home (Halloween)
9. On Olympus High (Instrumental) / Aphrodite’s Kiss
Lineup:
Brian Ross – vocals
Nick Jennison – guitar, backing vocals
Alan Ross – guitar, backing vocals
Liam Ferguson – bass guitar
Matthew Graham – drums
