Battle Beast - Steel (2011) (Japan COCB-60046)

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Battle Beast - Steel (2011) (Japan COCB-60046)

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Battle Beast is a new Finnish band and this was their first album back in 2011. These guys seriously have unlocked the hallowed secret to making great retro traditional metal. It’s all in the exuberance and the energy, seriously. Of course you need catchy songwriting too, but that goes without saying…what Battle Beast has done is bashed out probably the most convincing album of old school metal not made by an old school band, in quite some time, and it’s not because they write songs imitative of any one band. It’s because they play with unabashed balls-out fury and excitement, just like the best 80s bands did. These guys sound as hungry as any scrapped-together band from back then did.

And like the best bands back then, they drew on tradition while also forging forward with new elements. Battle Beast’s addition to heavy metal’s canon is keyboards. I know keyboards have been used quite often in metal as a pantheon, but this is pretty unique so far as traditional heavy metal goes. They play heavy, hooky, driving riffs, but the symphonics give everything a more wild and untamed edge, making it all sound more over the top – unlike the controlled and somber feelings they usually evoke in this sort of music, here we get loud, blaring war anthems fueled by orchestral keys and epic flourishes that just amplify the riffing, rather than detract from it.

But enough about that nonsense. THIS FUCKING RULES! No two ways about it; Battle Beast will roll over your ass like a metal-spiked war tank on steroids. Every song here features hook-laden, smoldering steel riffs that hit like punches to the gut. Comparisons can be made to Accept and really old Savatage, as this is just supremely feral, rock-your-face-off material that never lets up the speed even for a second. Vocalist Nitte Valo only adds to the blistering metal sound, as she is a serious old school wailer in the Udo or Rob Halford circa Painkiller mode. She sings with conviction and bellows her lungs out like she was damn well born to do it. Even when she has to sing softer, like on “Savage and Saint,” she pulls it off with gusto.

All the songs are killer, but tracks like “Armageddon Clan,” the furious “Justice and Metal” and the catchier-than-AIDS “Cyberspace,” the band destroys the world, remakes it and destroys it all over again. Just METAL as hell! On tracks like “The Band of the Hawk” and “Savage and Saint,” they utilize a more vocal-centric approach that works really well, probably because it comes out sounding something like a band of animal-skin clad warriors preparing for a fight against Grendel, or something. Totally badass. They have a really idiosyncratic sense of melody on songs like "Die Hard Warrior" and especially "Armageddon Clan," which I feel will become their trademark, as it is instantly recognizable as Battle Beast, and sounds like no one before them. It's very Finnish, but more than that, it's their own style.

Everything about Steel is just retro as hell, while being simultaneously infused with something quite new and fresh sounding. Unlike a lot of bands coming out these days like White Wizzard or Steelwing, Battle Beast sound like the genuine article, and work their songs with a really pro-level sheen and a true dedication to the old school riff. Not imitative of anyone else, and truly, unabashedly metal, Battle Beast is going places.

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