eighties metal « The RingMaster Review

Providing a debut album easy to suspect most heavy metal fans will find plenty within to spark an eager appetite, Silver P is the solo project of guitarist Pugnale, alias Roberto Colombini. The self-titled release though also embraces a host of rock and metal flavours to its creative heart providing an even wider range of ears a rich and intriguing experience.

Creating Silver P early 2017, Pugnale approached drummer/sound engineer Antonio Inserillo with a clutch of songs a few months later, persuading him to get on board with the emerging project. Finding a singer was a more difficult issue but eventfully Alex Jarusso was enlisted to the Italian band’s line-up, in turn becoming a quartet for the album with bassist Alessandro Cola. Their sound takes inspiration from the likes of Airbourne, Dio, and Megadeth but finds its own if not unique certainly distinct voice within a first album released through Red Cat Records.

The Deep Breath Before The Plunge opens up the release, its dramatic instrumental landscape a firmly magnetic intro to the release. The imagination easily ran with its epic and growing theatre of intimation and sound before Fields Of War erupts from its portentous air with an armoury of infectious riffs and rhythmic confrontation. The classic/eighties metal influenced delivery of Jarusso soon erupts from the battlefield and though it is a general vocal flavouring which we generally find hard to embrace as a style, his presence and prowess only adds to the track’s heavy/classic metal nurtured appeal and enjoyment.

Pugnale’s guitar craft and enterprise is another potent feature and provides even more attention grabbing enticement within next up Road To Hell, his grooves wrapping round ears with infectious intent as the rhythms of Inserillo and Cola rap and throb with flirtatious aggression. Growing into a definite best track contender it is swiftly rivalled by the blues rock lined strum of Memories; a track with a whiff of stoner rock and grunge to its relatively calm but increasingly tempestuous climate

Thrash and alternative hues colour the metal heart of The Net, wiry grooves luring quick pleasure into a just as enjoyable web of heavy and classic metal smelted invention. It is a trap as unpredictable as it is familiar in certain ways and another song adding to the album’s best passage of tracks though A Shade In Light with its opening feral riffs and nagging grooves within predacious shadows is as attention enslaving as anything around it. It never relinquishes that hold either as its dark trespass and melody woven predation continues to captivate.

Out Of This World follows and also ensures a compelling engagement with ears and appetite. It too has a darkness to its body and air which is disrupted and seared by bewitching sonic flames and melody hot tendrils and it is maybe no coincidence that for us the truly standout tracks are those bred in the shadows.

The thrash poked chug of I8 is old school metal/hard rock at its most wild and frivolous but built on open craft and adventurous mischief which seems to get more daring by the twist while Straight At The Heart closes things up by uncaging a rock ‘n’ roll holler not too hard to have body and spirit bouncing with.

Generally classic/heavy metal is a flavour others will appreciate more than us here but we cannot deny that Silver P, band and album, pleasured and captivated before getting under the skin in many ways.

Silver P is out now via Red Cat Records across all worldwide digital stores.

https://www.facebook.com/SilverPugnale

Pete RingMaster 18/10/2018

The new album from German thrashers Running Death is one of those encounters you just cannot help going back to and with increasing zeal. Inspirations to the band include the likes of Megadeth, Testament, and Annihilator, traits audible within DressAge but their sound has much more in its armoury ranging from eighties heavy metal and rock to similar era speed metal. It all comes in varying degrees within a certain thrash bred stomp and all colluding in one virulently infectious and catchy slab of muscular rock ‘n’ roll.

The band’s debut album of 2015, Overdrive, ensured the Bavarian are no strangers to eager praise or a host to new waves of fans and things can only escalate with the release of DressAge. The album wears a grin on its creative face from its first breath and carries a mischief which gives its tracks a real feel of aggressive fun. It opens up with Courageous Minds, a track swiftly involving the listener in its lively gait and nature as rhythms thump and dance upon the senses whilst the guitars of Daniel Baar and vocalist Simon Bihlmayer spin a web of enticement. It is not long before the track is rigorously strolling through ears, the beats of Jakob Weikmann swiping as the voice of Bihlmayer growls in a quickly engaging affair which if not quite gripping the imagination as firmly as subsequent tracks certainly gets things off to a rather pleasing start.

Dressage is next, surrounding ears with an almost predatory web of textures cored by the throaty bait of Andrej Ramich’s bass. The anthemically driving rhythms of Weikmann quickly have the instincts to stomp hooked, the song taking mere moments more to eclipse its predecessor and really get the album rocking. Baar’s melodic enterprise is technically and sonically impressive and never diluting the natural roar and flow of the thrash fuelled encounter before a gasp of time brings the matching strengths and incitement of Delusive Silence upon an appetite already beginning to get a touch greedy for what is on offer. Fusing a great mix of melodic warmth and metal irritability, the track only blossoms its weave of adventure and varied sounds keeping expectations wrong-footed and the imagination hooked.

Next up Heroes Of The Hour wraps ears in a wiry weave of melody and creative snares before revealing a more predator side through jabbing beats and antagonistic bass. They are in turn aligned to swinging grooves, a revelry soon infesting the aggressive and infectious tendencies of the song as another highlight is crafted before Duty Of Beauty bounces upon ears with a catchiness which borders on poppy. Those eighties influences spice all tracks and certainly impregnate the boisterous rock ‘n’ roll of the fifth song which also has a touch of Danish rockers Grumpynators to it.

Through the bulging contagion and biceps of the Motorhead scented Numbers and the motorbilly fuelled Beneath The Surface, fresh heights are continued and pushed, both outstanding tracks as compelling in tone and character as they are in individual craft while Anthem of Madness has neck muscles working and the body romping with its voracious instrumental theatre.

The album closes with the pair of Safety Second and Refuse To Kill, the first a fiery ballad which haunts and snarls in equal measure as guitars conjure a tapestry of evocative suggestion around just as strong vocal expression. It is a song which simmers upon the passions compared to other tracks but rapidly grows to be just as persuasive with each rerun of building body of energy and adventure. Its successor has a darker edge to its air, a song close to stalking ears as it fills them with rapacious rock ‘n’ roll cored by the most crotchety slice of thrash metal upon the album.

Cloaked in the fine work of Mexican graphic artist Joel Sánchez Rosales, DressAge is a proposition which merges something familiar with something forcibly fresh, the outcome a record which inspires only enjoyment and an eager energy to get involved. We will not say it will be a regular album of the year nomination but it will be one metal roar we will be keenly joined in love for.

DressAge is out May 26^th via Punishment 18 Records and @ https://runningdeath.bandcamp.com/