Time Signature
The wild hunt...
Genre: traditional metal
Gun Barrel is known for occasionally flirting with power metal aesthetics, but there is not much of that on "Brace for Impact", which by and large contains good old fashioned heavy metal tracks with stints of hard rock. The only thing associable with power metal on this album are a few epic-sounding choruses, like in 'Books of Life' and 'The Wild Hunt'.
Apart from these, the style on "Brace for Impact" is primarily comparable to '78-'84 era Judas Priest - in other words, the listener is treated to solid heavy metal powerful guitar riffage of the old school metal type with the bass pumping away. As I said, there are a few detours into hard rock (there are even some old-man-trucking moments every now and then), but these fit really well enough into the overall picture.
If you like extreme metal or modern metal, then "Brace for Impact" perhaps not the most overwhelming and mind-blowing album, but fans of 80s-metal should be able to appreciate Gun Barrel's ability to capture a lot of the classic elements from the metal of the early 80s.
In any case, this is a solid retro old school heavy metal release that should appeal to fans of 80s metal before it all went glam.