Anthrax, Armored Saint, Adrenaline Mob, Machine Head, Overkill, Exodus, and Shadows Fall—if you’ve got a band with members of all those groups, then you’re probably not resorting to cliché to call them a supergroup, right?
Ignore the members for a second and focus on the class on show in the songs. Forget that you know and probably love the bands above. If you heard this record and thought it was a brand-new band, you could call it the debut record of the year so far and not be that wide of the mark.
There’s a moment about a third of the way through when they get to “Exhausted,” and the solo cuts loose. And Phil Demmel and Mike Orlando just go for it. It’s superb.
So is the rest of it.
“In Stitches” is a very US brand of hard rock. The accent here is on the “hard.” By the time it starts with a solo and flexes its muscles with barely concealed violence at its heart, you’re in.
Adrenaline Mob fans—of which I count myself as one—would love this (it’s not much of a leap, in fairness). “Land I Used To Love” appropriately harks back, and there’s a sort of thrash feel, especially to the drums, and it gives things an odd dynamic.
“Apple Of Discord” just about holds its own, but it’s a damn sight heavier than its peers, and “Runaway Truck” rather underlines the fun they all seemed to have here.
Of course, this sort of music is only as good as its singer, and for this, they’ve brought in one of the best: John Bush. The Armored Saint man was also on Anthrax’s best record (I won’t debate this), and when he delivers what he terms “social commentary” on “White Flags And Bayonets,” it soars.
Drummer Jason Bittner (Shadows Fall) excels too. “Mousetrap” starts with something close to a drum solo, with bassist Jack Gibson also prominent.
All of this is just so well done and conceived. “Waver At Breaking Point” proves it yet again, and the aggression in the backing vocals is quite something. There’s no oscillating here, that’s for sure.
Something a little heavier still is at play “Through Pink Eyes.” The rhythms throughout are always interesting, and that is especially true here.
They end with an epic. Eight minutes of “Etter Stormen” (which translates to “After The Storm”) and its instrumental stylings show the band to be as good as any.
In other hands, this might have been a prog metal album or, most assuredly, a thrash one.
As it is, it’s just a collection of the most interesting hard rock around.
One thing it’s not, however, as Demmel makes clear, is a side project. If they are here to stay, then the band named after a storm wind is making a hurricane-sized statement.
Rating 9/10
REVIEW: CATEGORY 7 – CATEGORY 7 (2024)
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