After doing numerous reviews of this band previously, you really don’t need a history lesson, everyone knows what they are about and the classic German heavy metal style that you know you are going to get. So with this latest opus, yes you guessed it, you get fist pumping metal to the max. Since long time band member Stefan Kaufmann left the fold recently I was a little worried that his influence may be missing from this album, in fact both guitarists are new to U.D.O. for this recording. But far from it, my initial worries that is, I mean this is still U.D.O.
Rousing metal anthems and mid tempo bruisers sit side by side some heartening metal tunes that give depth and a sense of warmth. One of which is ‘Never Cross My Way’. Dirkschneider’s vocals have a genuine appearance of emotion, whilst the music is almost dreamy in places. Of course if you are more in the market for uplifting fist pumping metal tunes then head bang towards the title track ‘Steelhammer’ or maybe take a hold of the awesome ‘Death Ride’ and tunes like ‘Metal Nation’ give you exactly what you expect. Whilst I say this album gives you what you expect, I would imagine that most will be happy with this, there are no changes to the recent sound and album output, it is consistent as hell, but maybe on the next one we may find something more out of the box, but somehow, I don’t think so, would you really want that? I myself am torn with this one.
On the whole ‘Steelhammer’ delivers what most will expect from this longstanding German metal collective, you have a good energy to feed off, you have a powerful and precise production to entertain you and in some sections of the release, the band wear their soul on their sleeves. This is another consistent U.D.O. album mixing the mid to high tempo songs together resulting in a concise predictable album that is worthy of a high volume spin on the decks or media player.
(7/10 Paul Maddison)
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