Album Review: Ice War - Feel The Steel
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
In the decade since its inception – fourteen if you count the years as Iron Dogs – Canadian multi-talented musician, Jo Capitalicide, has released eight full-length albums, five EPs, and a couple of Splits, with Mystic Storm and Whipstriker. And with the incoming new year, Jo has set up album number seven – or nine - for our listen pleasure with Feel the Steel.
A quick check of the calendar tells me we’re in 2025, but this record insists it’s still sometime in the early Eighties. Coming from someone weaned musically in that era, on a diet of Maiden, Saxon, Priest and Motorhead, it is not something I see as a bad thing.
Beginning with the era-placing synths of the title track, the album bears it heart on its sleeve as the guitars craft a soaring introduction, leading into the main riff. There’s something almost classical about the it; fist-pumping and anthemic as the chorus arrives, this is a love-letter to the time when Metal hadn’t diversified into more sub-genres than you can shake a stick at.
Choice is Ours goes for a post-apocalyptic feel in its message, whereas Shine Bright is bookended by synth sounds taking us into an early Priest feel, circa The Ripper. On these three blatant Metal tunes, the limitations of Jo’s voices come to the fore. Elsewhere on Feel the Steel his pipes do not cause an issue, but here, when you’re used to hearing the power of a Dio, Halford or Dickinson, there’s just something a little lacking.
That said, when the album goes full Power Metal, Jo’s vocals are far from a weak link. Red Fire arrives quite early on and is an epic from the outset: full of grandeur and classical themes, it’s the sort of song custom-made for a furry codpiece and a massive broadsword. Similarly, those Manowar-vibes come back on Lost to the Void, beginning like a ballad as the synths carry an arpeggios guitar off to rest in a warrior’s grave.
Both have the fist-pumping, drinking-horn-raising general carousing attitude that will surely make heads-bang and grown-men cry.
Where Feel the Steel – and Ice War – really hits its stride is when it goes for a more rough and ready delivery. Damnation is a speed metal chug, In Waste delivers a harsh, pummelling riff and the perfect combination of musical and vocal styles, while Memories, arriving after Red Fire, shows Ice War’s more grimy and gritty side.
When you have a song called Venom, you’re going to have to work to do it justice, and Jo’s approach of a rampaging riff and hellfire lyrics, although a cleaner sound than the legendary Geordies, maintains the spirit of age.
Feel the Steel is nine slices of classical Heavy Metal – no heirs, no graces, just pure driving, anthemic, fist-pumping, chest-beating, singalong, unapologetic Metal. Ice War is Jo keeping the flame alive.
Bless you, Jo!
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