Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Scanner
Label: Massacre Records
Release: 2015
Length: 55:02
Rating: 4.5/5
Who would’ve thought? Right on the doorstep of the new year we got not one but two comeback albums from two legendary German bands that hardly anyone believed would ever return with new original material. Both are on Massacre Records, and both are dropping new albums at the same time. Stormwitch from Heidenheim and Scanner from Gelsenkirchen. If the former passed their comeback exam in somewhat softer tones with the album “Season of the Witch” (RockLine review HERE), just as we expected and quietly hoped, Scanner’s first new album in 13 years hit the bullseye dead center! That unfortunate, belatedly released »Scantropolis« (2002) instantly sank into oblivion. The new album »The Judgement« brings superbly sculpted heavy metal in the most ferocious old-school manner, with Scanner raging as if they were back at the very start of their career in the mid-eighties, hungry to prove themselves, rather than seasoned gentlemen closing in on fifty.
The only original member of today’s Scanner is guitarist Axel »A.J.« Julius, the band’s main engine and riff creator. Besides the proven names of the German metal scene he used to rebuild the lineup, Axel also brought in Greek vocalist Efthimios Ioannidis. Axel has pulled together ten outstanding speed metal tracks that know nothing but full-throttle battering. A starving beast, thirsty for blood, has snapped its chains and brings with it the stormy fury of Judgment Day, with the pitch-black horizons of the apocalypse! Eleven numbers (intro included) are crammed with the gloomy atmosphere of total doom, leaving no survivors in its wake. The whole crew puts in an outstanding performance, creating top-notch playing in remarkable unison across the album (the mid-song solos are a real treat, and so are some of the superb bits leading into the pre-chorus and/or chorus). The cherry on top is Efthimios’s outstanding vocal performance, whose approach recalls James Rivera at his best, in his days with Helstar and Destiny’s End. Which means he handles even the extremely high registers with ease! Warlord is the most jagged song on the album in its unfolding theatrics! In the verse Efthimios is the very personification of Halford at his best, and then the song morphs into a superbly laid-out, grabbingly melodic chorus. This song would have become a true German metal classic had it been written in the eighties. Efthimios is dark, relentless, dominant in every single moment, and unbelievably dedicated and heartfelt. He also uses English correctly in terms of accent, meter and rounding off melodies. A venomous singer to the bone! The guitar riffs are no less heartfelt, truly bringing the eighties back to life in the best possible way. The riffs are often backed by the relentless slapping of the double bass drum pedals, which sound raw in the production, as if we were back in the distant past when metal was still young. The production has captured the incredible liveliness and sentiment of the unpolished eighties. The feelings the album »The Judgement« stirs up while listening bring back, vividly, the times when the first German bands on the planet were being born and creating heavy metal as an answer to the boom of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Scanner appeared on the scene in the mid-eighties, like Blind Guardian for example, so a little later than the first German wave, but right from the start they were famed for their outstanding technical polish, and they delivered two top-notch albums in the eighties, »Hyperspace« and »Terminal Earth«, which connoisseurs today consider cult classics of European heavy metal.
Scanner, who loved to dabble in science fiction themes throughout their career, have dropped that this time around. The album cover and the theme of the song Eutopia still recall it a bit. Front and center now are the occult, Greek mythology (Battle of Poseidon) and historical themes (Pirates)! The fury of the riff-raging is certainly matched perfectly by anger in the lyrics! A real eruption of speed metal fire combined with vocal rage comes right away with the opening F.T.B (Fuck the Bastards).
55 minutes of pure magic, treading the floorboards of the old-school heavy metal textbooks. The album will surprise especially nostalgics of the old days like me, since generally very few older bands that shone in the eighties manage to create comeback albums in their later years that reach the quality level of their early career. And »The Judgement« is exactly that. A brilliant, credible heir to the band’s first two albums, which, under the baton of Axel Julius, delivers precisely what the band does and can do best. The outstanding core of authentically brewed heavy metal, tearing away mercilessly with its powerful teeth in punkish insubordination, proves that the dental formula stays unspoiled even in their later years! Let’s just hope Scanner head out on a more broadly planned European tour, that some bigger band takes them along on the road, and that we won’t have to stake out gig dates in northern Germany!
Lineup
Efthimios Ioannidis – vocals
Axel A.J. Julius – guitar
Andreas Zeidler – guitar
Jonathan Sell- bass
Patrick Klose – drums
Production
Axel A.J. Julius
Tracklist
- Intro
- F.T.B.
- Nevermore
- Warlord
- Eutopia
- The judgement
- Battle of Poseidon
- Pirates
- Known better
- The race
- The legionary
