So last night I caught L.A. Guns: A band who I’ve gone on record as calling “the best live band of the ’80s glam metal era”. As I stood there watching these veterans rip through hit after hit after hit, it got me thinking. Yeah, I know L.A. Guns isn’t a band associated with deep thinking, but hear me out. For as much as I love my thrash, death, and black metal (or at least select forms of the latter), I also love when happiness and heaviness collide, like in the case of L.A. Guns. Tracii Guns’ guitar riffs boast the hard-nosed exuberance of the NWOBHM, only to be met by the hedonistic lyrics and anthemic choruses of singer Phil Lewis.
Where the hell am I going with all this? Another band who fits this “happy metal” niche (let’s hope that label doesn’t catch on) is Striker. I’ve been a fan of these Canadian heshers since high school, when they were tearing up the underground with high speed hymns to metal and beer. Then 2018 rolled around and the unthinkable happened: Striker traded their denim and leather for leisure suits…and it was fucking glorious. What can only be described as a hybrid of Judas Priest and Foreigner, Play to Win quickly became one of my favorite albums of the ’10s. Striker was a great speed metal band. They were now an even better AOR band. It made many a headbanger wonder what would happen next in this chapter of Striker-dom.
Fast forward 6 years later and our answer has arrived in the form of Striker’s seventh album, Ultrapower. In many ways, Ultrapower is a step back, not in terms of musical or songwriting quality, but rather in terms bringing back the heaviness of past releases. Similar to Enforcer after the release of the controversial AOR flavored Zenith (2019), it seems Striker has found a way to appease both sides of the coin, pounding us with full blown trad. metal anthems like the colossal “Circle of Evil”, face-melting “Blood Magic”, and power metal tinged “Ready for Anything”. You wanted classic Striker? You got it.
The AOR direction of Play to Win is expanded upon finely as well, specifically in the form of cuts like “Live to Fight Another Day”, “City Calling”, and “Give It All”, the latter boasting a *gasp* saxophone solo! There’s no doubt that for as much classic metal these dudes consumed in their youth, they also paid close attention to their Canuck AOR forefathers, with some of these songs sounding like Loverboy with a modern metal production. The rest of Ultrapower falls comfortably in the vein of what I’d label “arena metal”: Hook-centric songs with gang vocals and massive production, but hefty riffs and underlying aggression, not far off from what Scandi-AOR darlings H.E.A.T have done on their last couple albums.
Whether it be the training montage vibe of “Best of the Best of the Best”, ethereal bliss of “Thunderdome”, or brainlessness of “Brawl at the Pub”, Ultrapower kept me smiling my entire drive home last night, tearing up the highway with the undeniable power of classic metal and AOR. For what it is that they do, Striker are the “Best of the Best of the Best”. I dare you to find another behind (aside from maybe the aforementioned H.E.A.T) who even comes close. Can I get an Eh-men?!
9 out of 10
Label: Record Breaking Records
Genre: Heavy Metal
For fans of: Enforcer, Cauldron, H.E.A.T