Lethal Steel are at once both a frustrating and irritating band – frustrating in that they have most of the trappings in place to deliver something truly fist-raising and irritating in that a couple of key ingredients missing from ‘Legion of the Night’ completely hamstring what should have been a rollicking heavy metal experience.
The Stockholm five-piece look the part for sure – shades, studs, tight jeans, silly ‘taches – and ‘Legion of the Night’ has the perfect early-80s NWOBHM sound absolutely nailed. Organic, echoey drums and insistent guitars with just the right hint of snarl, it oozes analogue warmth and that dusty sense of magic that one gets from obscure 1981 7” vinyls with badly-drawn pencil pictures of Vikings on the cover. All lovely stuff.
Unfortunately, the irritation doesn’t take long to set in. The record sounds great, the band look great but the songs… the songs are not great I am sad to say. ‘Sirius’ is a sturdy enough opener – OK, every single riff has basically been lifted off of Judas Priest’s ‘Screaming for Vengeance’ but there’s enough meat there to keep most rivetheads faintly interested. ‘Warrior’ is a pretty vigorous number, galloping along at pace and ‘Into The Void Of Lucifer’ is a sturdy rocker.
The rest of the record is patchy to say the least however – the chorus of ‘Rosier’ is pathetic, weedy and limp whilst ‘Night of the Witch’ also suffers from a similarly flat, irksome refrain. A lot of this is down to the album’s other key problem – namely the vocals of Viktor (surname not forthcoming). Now maybe it could be me, but it really sounds to these ears like the guy cannot hold a tune to save his life – most of the vocal lines on ‘Legion of the Night’ are delivered in a flat, slightly wobbly double-tracked monotone. There’s little in the way of variation, dynamics or any real tunefulness in the man’s delivery.
It’s baffling – material like this practically screams for someone to belt it out. Even if you aren’t the most proficient lungsman, you can go far in classic metal on pure power and pure enthusiasm alone (look at that bloke from Gravedigger for Christ’s sake). This fellow unfortunately doesn’t even provide that, simply a nasal drone that starts to grate long before unexceptional album closer ‘Demon From the Past’ rolls around. It doesn’t even sound like he’s trying.
This reads harshly on ‘Lethal Steel’ and in truth, this isn’t a terrible record. It is proficient, has some good lead guitar work and the sound/look is spot-on. It does feel however that the band think that’s all it takes to get instant cred with the new breed of high-topped, thrash-tached, tight-jeaned ‘Keep it True’ crowd and that their Live Evil festival invite will soon be in the post. Sadly, it’s not enough – not by a long shot – and until they up their songwriting game and get some real passion into the vocal delivery, Lethal Steel are destined for a career as also-rans.
(5/10 Frank Allain)
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