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STRIKER
Ultrapower

Record Breaking (2024)
Rating: 6/10

After a trickle of singles over the last few years, Edmonton, Alberta-based metal act Striker is done with the teasing and finally unleashes its first full-length studio album for six years after 2018 opus Play To Win. The Canadian mob caused quite a stir with their 2010 debut Eyes In The Night, and while successive releases, Armed To The Teeth (2012), City Of Gold (2014), Stand In The Fire (2016), Striker (2017) and aforementioned Play To Win, were strong, the band seemed a tad burnt out, in my opinion.

This new outing kicks off with the crunch of ‘Circle Of Evil’ and if the band had continued with such a flurry then I’d have been convinced that Striker were back to their best, but this album, unfortunately, has too many cringe worthy pitfalls to overcome. Sure, this is a humorous opus brimming with energy, but at times it resorts to the ridiculous, such as on the fluffy ‘Live To Fight Another Day’, the bratty Ugly Kid Joe-like high school dross ‘Sucks To Suck’ and funk metal tripe ‘City Calling’.

If this album had emerged in 1992 we’d have branded it wet, cheesy and intolerable, and that’s exactly how I feel now. The band also has a tendency to drift towards 80s nostalgia (‘Give It All’ and ‘Best Of The Best Of The Best’) suggesting more confusion in such a mixed bag, and that’s a shame because vocalist Dan Cleary has a strong set of pipes and the riffs on display can be real meaty torrents. However, with such inconsistencies contained within, Striker’s latest ball deflates very quickly.

Neil Arnold

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