With the long term veterans in heavy metal attempting
to keep their astounding legacies going, there
has been an abundance of new bands emerging on
the scene with what seems to be the mutual goal
of pushing the classic style of music on a younger
generation in an attempt to keep it alive. Ex-White
Wizzard frontman Peter Ellis put this project
together and isn’t wasting any time messing
around, by asking Richie Faulkner who’s
now famous from his stint in Judas Priest to provide
guest guitar work provides a media buzz around
the album, drawing already existing NWOBHM fans
into their new quest for attention.
Looking at the EP, musically of course, it feels
like your bog standard traditional style with
modernized production values. Being quite familiar
with the band White Wizzard throughout their career
I was already well prepared for what kind of vocals
to be expecting, very reminiscent of Iron Maiden’s
Bruce Dickinson with a slight twist. It’s
just clicked for me that they’ve been heavily
advertising that Judas Priest guitarist Richie
Faulkner guest stars on the record, but this isn’t
really that big of a pull in all seriousness as
Faulkner has never actually contributed to any
released Priest material he was just a touring
member so that is a bit of a misguided association.
Nevertheless I need to not look at this with the
intended act of rejuvenating an old school genre
as it affects a journalistic point of view about
the actual quality of the music.
The song’s themselves are like I said, well
produced NWOBHM songs with modernised guitar techniques
and tones, the track featuring Faulkner is only
a guest solo and it’s the title track “Rock
The Night” and you have to give the guy
credit that is a blazing solo, quite the tasty
little number. “Fatal Attack” thought
has an introduction that is exactly like Iron
Maiden’s “Prowler” and I know
that this is what they were going for as the link
is meant to be there; to me it is just an undeniable
likeness proving that they are running out of
original riffs.
Overall as a starting EP it’s quite the
start of a career, but the depth of the career
is yet to be seen as if they’re taking the
“influence” card from famous act to
this extreme then I can’t see them going
on as long as a band would usually last or if
they do I can’t say that I have faith they’ll
find that much success in the long run. It’s
got its distinctive moments and sounds the part
but I’ve heard it all before with things
like this.
3/5
Review by James Webb
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