I have waited a very long time for this album to come out, it seems like a long time anyway, once I heard this Swedish bands demo tape via a major distribution website then I was completely hooked. In their wisdom High Roller Records have picked up this band are about to set Europe alight with their classic metal sounds, this time around though it’s not of the usual period of British music of late for young musicians to emulate…read on!.
‘Firestorm’ and ‘Hellbound’, two of the new tracks, are right in the ‘Point of Entry’ era of Judas Priest, perhaps a leaning towards pre-British Steel material also. The melody overall is magical, the tight guitar work is very affectionate and the fist-pumping combination is mesmerising. This is the era I would put this version of Ambush in, the early 80’s. The vocal melody during the song ‘Ambush’ is cool, I liked this from their demo tape, and in fact all of those songs from the demo tape and the 7 inch ‘Natural Born Killers’ feature on this debut full length album, so you gain a nice summary of all material released to date in their short existence.
You have everything a genuine classic heavy metal fan could desire on this album from the cool artwork to the vocal melodies, guitar melodies, twin guitar lead breaks, effortless timekeeping and a feeling that these musicians are in it to entertain their fans, in short ‘Firestorm’ is no bullshit, it is genuine metal, why change near perfection? The only thing that’s stopped me from going crazy in the rating of this release is the fact there is actually only three new tracks, but then again, it gives a good spectrum of the Ambush arsenal and gives new fans a chance to hear songs that first caught my attention last year. You can be as metal as you want to be with this album, Ambush certainly are “there for you and ready for the fight”, it’s a belter of an album.
(9/10 Paul Maddison)
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