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Mean Streak: Metal slave

23/12/09 || Khlysty

OK, time to do a reality check here. The year is 2009, going to 2010, right? Good. And, like, heavy metal HAS moved on since its inception, back in the early ‘70s, don’t you agree? And, generally speaking, no-one of us has been in a coma for the last, lemme see, almost 30 years, so we HAVE been following the changes that have happened in metal during this period, yeah? Good, then, can anyone, please, tell me how come there still are bands out there who claim that they play “NWOBHM”? Isn’t NWBHOMSB supposed to have been, like, passé for, like 25 years or so? Please, tell me, am I so wrong???

(PARENTHESIS: I have to tell you something. The first bona fide heavy metal records that I’ve ever listened to was Motörhead’s “Iron Fist” and Iron Maiden’s “The Number Of The Beast”, back in 1982. Up till then, I had heard bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but listening to the two aforementioned bands was revelatory. Never before had I heard music so powerful, so menacing, so ugly and so revolutionary. As you can easily understand, I was hooked instantly…)

Anyway, Mean Streak come from Sweden and – in their own words – they play NWBGHOMS or something like that. And, you know what? They’re right. If someone forgets the year we live in and pretends that thrash, death, black, neo-doom and post-metal have never happened, one can easily go back in 1979-1980 and imagine that he’s visiting some North London pubs, where longhairs take the stage and play a Judas-Priest-on-steroids hybrid of metal with punkish abandon. Mean Streak’s sound is so down-to-pat “authentic” NWABROHM that even some “modernized” production won’t let the listener shake the feeling that he’s taken a serious trip down memory lane.

Which, y’know, presents a lot of problems for this here reviewer. See, back in the early-to-mid ‘80s, I’ve listened to quite a few of them NWERBHOG bands, starting with Iron Maiden and early Def Leppard and, then, moving on to Grim Reaper, Diamond Head, Demon, Witchfinder General, Tygers of Pan Tang, Persian Risk et al. So, I CAN say that I’m pretty in-the-know as far as NWGOMHD is concerned, not to say pretty bored by it (one can say that maybe I ODed on it…). And, while Mean Streak plays them rocks with conviction and flair, I cannot shake the feeling that I have already heard –sometimes ad nauseum…- everything they’re doing here.

Mind you, what the do, they do it VERY cogently and professionally and they obviously LIKE it. This doesn’t sound like, y’know, retro revivalism or some such shit, but like something done lovingly and with knowledge – even about the repercussions this choice might raise. It’s just that I’m too full of NWARHBM, or too jaded a fuck to really go for the band, to really appreciate their love for a genre that had produced great bands and great music in the past, before bowing out for more extreme forms of metallic fury. The guys have clinched the NWQRBMHD sound, down to the dual guitar attack, the epic soloing, the brisk drumming, the vocal melodies and harmonies and the cheerful abandon that typified the genre.

I won’t tire you with more details. This is as NWOBRGHX as it gets. If you like it and you haven’t been tired of it yet, then “Metal Slave” is a worthy addition to your record collection. If, like me, you feel that this kind of music has been done to death in the past, then I would suggest that you move somewhere else…

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Black Lodge Records
Website: Mean Streak MySpace
Band
Andy LaGuerin: vocals
Peter Anderson: bass, vocals
Jonas Kallsback: drums
David Andersson: lead guitar
Patrik Gardberg: lead guitar

Tracklist
01. Whom the gods love, die young
02. Battle within
03. Eyes of a stranger
04. The seventh sign
05. Raise your hands
06. Rock city
07. Sin city lights
08. Carved in stone
09. Metal slave
10. Sinner ‘n’ Saints

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