Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Striker
Label: SAOL Music
Released: 2016
Running time: 43:23
Rating: 4/5
The fourth studio album from Edmonton metal revivalists Striker brings yet another transformation in sound and style. There’s been another lineup change this time too, on guitars. All of it is tied to the band’s gradual evolution in sound and style over the years. »Cities of Gold« (2014) radiated a wound-up, souped-up mix, brilliantly combining classic speed/thrash metal elements soaked in modern production. Even back then the band showed a fondness for working in melodic passages, and on the new album they push melody right to the front.
»Stand in the Fire« is an album that’s fishing for the favor of the masses. Its mission is to win over the worldwide base of power metal fans who, one way or another, cherish heavy metal revivalism. Every song is detailed in its arrangements and grabs you instantly. The choruses are the peaks of the tracks, and they’re ridiculously catchy. Even the opening single Too Late signaled the change. That very song is »infected« with the AOR musicality of the eighties, the kind cultivated by, say, fellow Canadians Triumph and/or Van Groove, and fantastically packaged into the band’s overall metal dossier. The band has also paid more attention to harmonized vocal lines that »hold down the fort« for the lead vocal and complement its mood. Needless to say, »Stand In the Fire« is jagged to the brim with pomp and bombast. Like no Striker album released to date.
The band has crafted a bundle of songs with an enormously versatile variety that still keeps the album remarkably compact and well defined. Alongside the general shift into more melodic waters, they also tried a few experiments, like in Out for Blood, where a saxophone is deftly worked in. Thrash elements are naturally still present this time too (the title track) , but other ingredients often overshadow them.
The band plays with fierce commitment. You can feel they’re highly talented on their instruments and technically polished to the bone, potent young studs hungry to prove themselves. And luckily, also brimming with outstanding ideas, which they passionately shape into an incredibly souped-up metal mass, stuffed with melodic seductiveness and all-around dynamism (»mid-eight« passages, repeated rhythmic turns, etc…). Guitar harmonies in thirds, solo escapades and all the extra guitar ornaments layered over the lead guitar phrases! All of it is exactly where it should be. In the right places in the compositions. On top of all this sits an outstanding vocal performance by singer Dan Cleary, who has never approached Striker material with such intensity and such a dominant musical form in the choruses as well as the verses. Along the way he optimized and upgraded his singing, mostly polishing it further and taking it up another notch. He’s also the only original, founding member of a band that hasn’t even existed for 10 years yet has already gone through plenty of lineup shuffles.
So how do you sum up the verdict on this album in one sentence? Imagine the spirit of bands like Diamond Head, Raven, Tokyo Blade, Jameson Reid, Judas Priest , Accept possessed by the new-wave spirit of revivalism from the bands that swarm the scene these days. I’m aiming especially at Scandinavia, Germany and of course Canada’s Striker. The framework of the song structures is carried over from the old school of speed/heavy/thrash metal, while the production and performance look squarely toward modern times. As it should be. Done with great fire and plenty of power. Let’s hope the band, who played the Metaldays festival in Tolmin last year, pays our country a visit soon with a new show! Well, Germany’s Primal Fear and Brainstorm sensed a stylistic kinship with Striker and invited them on a joint European tour. Striker was surely also recommended to Primal Fear by Randy Black (W.A.S.P., ex-Primal Fear, ex-Annihilator), who helped Striker record the drums on the new album.
Lineup
Dan Cleary – vocals
Timothy Brown – guitar
Adam Brown – drums
Wild Bill – bass
Production
Frederik Nordstrom
Track list
1. Phoenix Lights (3:38)
2. Out for Blood (3:51)
3. Too Late (4:52)
4. Stand in the Fire (3:39)
5. The Iron Never Lies (4:06)
6. Escape from Shred City (2:53)
7. Outlaw (4:35)
8. Locked In (3:45)
9. United (4:06)
10. Better Times (3:37)
11. One Life (4:17)
