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HIGHWAYS
Breaking The Code

Stormspell (2022)
Rating: 9/10

The old school metalheads will be strapping on the bullet belts and pulling on the leather jacket when this one enters the fray. Imagine then if you will an interesting amalgamation of Megadeth, Metal Church and sizzling 80s metal circa anyone and everyone from Lizzy Borden to Helix and Steeler.

Highways is the brainchild of Lincoln, Nebraska-based songwriter Joe Coleman who has brought together musicians from Chile, Ukraine, Nigeria and India to collaborate on this project. Breaking The Code is the second full-length record from this talented bunch and it’s the sort of metal executed in such a fashion that ripples of excitement remain throughout the experience.

The crisp guitar tone enthrals as riffs aplenty chug nicely to the sneering vocal cries, and this is nowhere more evocative than on opening expression ‘Disposable Virtue’ which bridges that gap between thrash and heavy, yet melodic metal.

Guitarist Carlos Molina has a sort of Dave Mustaine smirk to his vocal style, but he also boasts a higher pitch and range. As this album unravels one can only marvel at the cohesion of this combo as the bass of Marvin Masok rumbles in tidy fashion in tandem with the molten skin slaps of Vinay Ramakrishnan as the lead guitar of Oleh Andrievsky sizzles with extraordinary subtlety while remaining cutting in its quest, tearing through the speakers like a shark fin through dark waters.

Tracks such as ‘Survive’ and ‘Search For Freedom’ have a crisp yet scorching quality as the band embarks on numerous mid-tempo crunchers, but everywhere there are wisps of breathless technicality and authentic 80s homage such as with the moodier trudges of ‘Mechanized’ and the edgy, smouldering ‘Wasted Remains’.

These are the sort of records I was always on the hunt for back in the mid-to-late 80s, and that’s high praise for this confident, metallic dose. Need more convincing? Why not dive into the crystal waters of the simmering ‘Cut The Circulation’ or the menace of closer ‘The Desert’ and feel the metal fuel race through your veins time and time again.

Neil Arnold

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