Generation Steel is a very fresh band, formed not a long time ago, in 2019. Nevertheless, these guys were able to gain attention of Accept‘s guitarist Uwe Lulis, who produced the band’s debut album The Eagle Will Rise, which will be released in the end of January.
From the very short information about the band I understood that it was formed by guitarist Jack The Riffer (ex-Dead Man’s Hand, ex-Bullet Train) and soon the second guitarist Pascal Lorenz (ex-Oscura, ex-Corbian), bassist Michael Kaspar (ex-Squealer), drummer Martin Winter and vocalist Rio Ullrich joined the band too. After that Generation Steel started to work on their first longplay.
Musicians themselves define their music as German Heavy Metal, which is mostly true but with some reservations. NWOBHM and some typical American Heavy can be also heard in Generation Steel’s music, with some Power Metal elements as well, so as for me, the word “German” here used more like geographic identity.
If we are talking about “classic German Heavy”, on The Eagle Will Rise it can be definitely heard in “The Chariot” and the ending “Alive”: fast paced songs with some melodic choruses and Rio’s aggressive vocals. There are also some Teutonic Heavy Metal elements in “Generation Steel” (something that reminds early Accept), which interfere with American ones (in a vain of DIO). The pace changes here a couple of times, from fast to middle and back, adding some variety to the song.
“Praying Mantis” and “Soulmates” definitely have NWOBHM music: it can be heard that Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were the source of inspiration for the band too. With this, a melody in “Soulmates” chorus is quite catchy, while a male chanting in “Praying Mantis” adds some heaviness to the music.
Powerful “Warbringer” with Martin Winter’s great drumming and groovy chorus also worth to mention; at the same time the groove doesn’t reduce the aggression of the music at all. And “Heaven’s Calling” can fully pretend to be called the heaviest song in the album: it has tough riffs, potent bass, fast solo and good drumming as well.
It is notably that there are no ballads in this album. “The Wayward One” starts with slow guitar finger-picking and melodic second guitar, promising to turn into a Heavy ballad, but instead of this it transforms into fast Teutonic Heavy song with good riff and melodic and quite catchy chorus.
However, like many other young Heavy Metal bands, Generation Steel didn’t avoid some genre clichés, trivial riffs and banal hooks. The best example for this is “Temple Of Malady”: yes, there are powerful drums here, energetic bridge and melodic chorus but overall this song sounds quite trivial, for my sorrow. Nevertheless, as a justification for the band I must say that it is very hard to be fully original in the narrow scope of this genre (while Spirit Adrift somehow cope with it) and Generation Steel really do their best.
And if not to focus attention on what I’ve said above, The Eagle Will Rise is a dynamic and powerful album, where musicians blend some various elements, staying within the genre. So if you are a Heavy Metal fan, you should definitely pay attention to this album.
The Eagle Will Rise will be released on January, 22 via Pure Steel Records.
If you really would like to support Antichrist, you can just Share our article.
You can also support Antichrist by sending a couple bucks to cover some webhosting expenses. =>> PayPal
