Album Review: Striker – Ultrapower
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
It is quite fitting that I am listening to this album on a Friday night as “Ultrapower”, the seventh album from Canadian heavy metallers Striker, is an absolute party of an album. Striker started off as a mix of traditional heavy metal and speed metal and were firmly part of the New Wave Of Traditional Heavy Metal movement. They have never strayed too far from their origins but in recent years and especially on the last couple of albums they have embraced more influences from hard rock and glam metal but written some of the catchiest heavy metal tunes committed to tape.
After five years of writing and recording, Striker have come up with their boldest and most daring album yet. Pulling in sounds and influences from here, there and everywhere this is the sound of a band doing exactly what they want to and not giving a solitary fuck. It features some of the band’s catchiest and most accessible songwriting as well as some of their most leftfield moments. The album has plenty of tunes which are quintessential Striker such as ‘Ready For Anything’ and ‘Turn The Lights Out’ being full on anthemic heavy metal but there is big embracing of 80’s pop rock and AOR especially in ‘City Calling’ with some weird vocoder vocals and the wonderfully slick ‘Give It All’ with the retro synths and saxophone (yes really) and sounds like it is taken from the soundtrack of a forgotten 80’s movie. One of the best songs is ‘Blood Magic’ which starts with a cool spaghetti western influenced intro before switching to some pure pounding heavy fuckin’ metal and ‘BEST of the BEST of the BEST’ is an absolute party anthem but one of the real surprises is ‘Live To Fight Another Day’ which was originally a standard Striker song at the initial writing stage but ended up becoming a glorious piece of synthwave which whilst being a real departure for the band works incredibly well.
This is an album that has so much energy to it. It is a pure adrenaline shot of fun and joy. The band also sound like they are having the biggest party whilst recording it with energised and passionate performances all round. The vocals from Dan Clearly have never sounded better, the guitar work from Tim Brown and John Simon Fallen is exquisite with a barrage of riffy goodness and shredtastic leads whilst the rhythm section of bassist Pete Klassen and drummer Jono Webster power through and crash and smash. These may be catchy and poppy tunes but they carry some rhythmic heft to them.
“Ultrapower” is quite frankly a magnificent album. It has a feel good 80’s movie soundtrack aura about it with the spirit of artists such as John Farnham and Stan Bush standing tall alongside pure 80’s metal throwback. If you love 80’s rock and metal then this album is going to have you grinning from ear to ear. I think I’m gonna be grinning for days after several listens. Some fans of Striker’s more speed metal inclined sound may find this album a bit jarring but I can safely say it is the best album they have done and they have released some corkers. For the pure joy it has given me, this album is going to be hard to top in 2024 and we are still in the early part of the year.
