BLACK STEEL - Destructor

The Australian metal scene while very small has spawned several excellent bands in the past several years, Black Steel being one of them. As a follow up to their debut CD EP “Battle Call”, Black Steel delivers an anthemic blast of traditional power metal with “Destructor”. Lead track "Breaking The Chains" is an excellent piece of heroic power metal featuring thunderous guitars and Matt Williams assertive vocals which can be compared in some cases to a more melodic Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth from Overkill. Emanuel Rudnicki and Andrew DiStefano absolutely terrorize the fretboard with their twin attack on "Hell's Gates".

"Bonded By Steel" can be described in one word, epic. This track combines early to mid 80's power metal with 21st century production values. Once again the guitars on this track are staggering in terms of sounding extremely unique. "Vengeance Of The Damned" starts out with a dirty guitar riff and surprisingly becomes a a warriors hymn of sorts (somehow the term ballad just does not fit). "Too Wild To Tame" would please fans of Hammerfall as it would be comparable to material from "Crimson Thunder".

Comparisons can be drawn to Iron Maiden, Manowar and other true metal bands in terms of influences, yet Black Steel manages to put their own unique stamp on the tracks. Unlike Germany, Australia does not have the sheer volume of bands playing this genre of music, thus they are able to better draw from personal influences than compete with other power metal bands. These facts stated, Black Steel is better than most all of the power metal bands on the Century Media, Nuclear Blast, SPV and Metal Blade labels in particular. Black Steel is on a comparable plane in terms of compositions with, dare I say Manowar and Virgin Steele.