Stephen
Add those heavy doses of British's Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, the muscular power show of American's Manowar, and the gritty-distorted piece of German's Accept, and you'll get 'Steel', the debut from Finnish Metal Battle's 2010 crowned champion, Battle Beast. Fronted by Nitte Valo, a shrieking female vocalist that somehow reminds me to the early days of Geoff Tate or Rob Halford, especially on her upper register.
The vocal character is very traditional heavy metal, unlike the gothic persona of Tarja Turunen or Sharon den Adel, Valo is more like Doro and her pitch is even higher at some point, it can annoy some people that can't stand a consistent vibrated scream throughout the album. The opening track, 'Enter The Metal World' is very much highly influenced by Judas Priest, a strong start, and what followed next, 'Armageddon Clan', is even better. The riffs salvo packed with sensational chorus and solos is great enough for me to love this track.
"Justice And Metal", "Die-Hard Warrior", and "Iron Hand" are gasoline-burning uptempo madness, the earth-shattering vocals and the slaughtering riffs are insane and definitely one of their strongest tunes. "Steel" maybe slower, but they just can't stop making a high quality heavy metal track. "Cyberspace" and "Show Me How To Die" are paying tributes to Iron Maiden, the classic pattern from the 80s are obvious on the arrangement.
I must admit, I like most of the tracks here, but if you ask me are there any weak tracks? Definitely couple songs aren't as great as the rest, such as the decent Axel Rudi Pell ballad style of 'Savage And Saint' or the acceptable 'The Band of The Hawk', but despite the unoriginal issue, I'm pretty sure Battle Beast successfully revived the glorious days of the 80s, you can hardly hear any modern metal touch, this is purely time-travel to that decade. A stunning debut and just can't stop to hit Play again when it's over.