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MIDNIGHT RACE
Heavy Metal Owls

Steel Shark (2024)
Rating: 6/10

As a band previously unknown to me, Ecuador’s Midnight Race come equipped with an album cover that, art wise, reminds me of 80s releases by Cities or Shok Paris. Musically, the guys bridge the ever recognisable gap between heavy and speed metal resulting in 31 minutes of familiar yet enjoyable music.

The star of the show here is the busy axe work which scurried throughout this debut full-length record like a mouse being pursued by a cat. Due to the ever shifting guitar there remains a freshness, although for many I can see the biggest criticism being the vocals. I’m probably going to be in the minority because I enjoy the naive and almost punky gasps which have an early 80s drive and rawness about them. Sure, Edd Onslaught hardly dominates the record as his moniker suggests he should, in fact he barely leads, but his tone mixes well with the rest of the fire and fury.

At just 31 minutes in duration the album doesn’t exactly bed in immediately, but I did eventually warm to its charms due to songs such as speedball ‘Return Of The Darkness’ and the almost punky ‘Final Attack’ and ‘Rebel & Wild’, the latter sounding like something the legendary all female troupe The Runaways would churn out. Meanwhile, ‘Midnight Rider’ is a full on speed metal assault where the guitars and drums zip by at quite the pace, and that’s where Midnight Race sits, between a punky energy and lighter flurries of speed.

Yes, the album does lack weight and spite considering the two styles the band adopts, but there’s enough energy here to provide a quick shot to the veins.

Neil Arnold

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