This is Stallion’s second full length album, and I am in agreement with the PR material for this German heavy/speed metal bands efforts, it’s a more refined and mature effort from the start.
Blistering into action is the fast ‘Underground Society’. This kicks you into life, plenty of riffs and momentum harking back to the glory days of German speed metal, which for me is still the best around. Vocally, the style remains the same, the tone and delivery may remind you of some other styles, the PR material mentions Bullet (Germany) and I would throw in current Irish upstarts Stereo Nasty, Ratt (yes I mean them – in terms of tone!) and Living Death from the old guard. The momentum keeps going and when the band slow down like the latter part of ‘Waiting for a Sign’, if you’re not singing along with the urgency of classic Accept then you may be missing the point. Albeit darker in presentation in regards the artwork, the songs are stronger and visually things have tamed down too.
‘Kill Fascists’ is their grindcore track! Not in terms of style, purely duration at 17 seconds long, you get my point. ‘Lord of the Trenches’ flexes their creativity muscles once more and gives a well-rounded tune that’s longer than their normal song running times, but wholly fulfilling in terms of the metal that’s presented to you. ‘Blackbox’ is another great tune, there are many, in fact all, not a weak one amongst the release. Stallion have developed and the results are very rewarding. Once the dust has settled and you look beyond their earlier material, you may be able to appreciate the strong album that is presented here. A band I’ve enjoyed watching develop, a band that should be stepping up a level in terms of recognition with this release behind them belting out classic speed and heavy metal to the max.
(8.5/10 Paul Maddison)
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