This is Swedish Screamer’s third full album, their last effort ‘Phoenix’ was pretty damn fine, so this one has a fair bit to stand up against. Thankfully, it’s all positive. Screamer continue in their quest mixing classic metal and including some NWOBHM era riffs here and there. There is a wealth of vocal melody here, something I must say is a marked plus point. ‘On My Way’ delivers perfectly, whilst ‘Lady of the Night’ is absolutely stellar. In some quarters, I hear some Kiss late 70’s/early 80’s influence in the vocal melody, a couple of chord progressions here and there, but a definite nod to Paul Stanley in the phrasing. Other tracks couple classic momentous Scorpions tunes such as ‘Warrior’, even some old US Power metal riffs appear on other tracks and the expected nod to the NWOBHM features later in the track ‘Denim and Leather’. I am pleased they haven’t gone total NWOBHM, the main emphasis is classic metal. The Kiss influence rears again on the closer ‘The Punishment’ whilst the stand out track for me on the album is the infectious sing along ‘Monte Carlo Nights’ that also featured recently as an EP release.
With such sing along tunes, it’s hard to pin point in reality for me a favourite, the album flows really well, my only regret is not attending a free London show a while back as I reckon I did miss out big time there based on this and their previous album release. Hopefully that will remedy itself in the future, however, for this, there’s no reason why you can’t swing your pants and bang you head to Screamer in the same vein as label mates High Spirits, Screamer have equal merits.
‘Hell Machine’ hits you first time, it’s an instantly memorable release that brings together some of the best aspects of classic metal, far removed from trends, they are just damn good at what they do, this is indeed heavy metal euphoria as stated by the PR material!
(8.5/10 Paul Maddison)
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