{"id":102347,"date":"2024-02-02T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T00:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=102347"},"modified":"2024-02-12T10:47:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T10:47:36","slug":"album-review-striker-ultrapower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-striker-ultrapower\/","title":{"rendered":"STRIKER – Ultrapower (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

STRIKER
Ultrapower<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nRecord Breaking (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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After a trickle of singles over the last few years, Edmonton, Alberta-based metal act Striker is done with the teasing and finally unleashes its first full-length studio album for six years after 2018 opus Play To Win<\/em>. The Canadian mob caused quite a stir with their 2010 debut Eyes In The Night<\/em>, and while successive releases, Armed To The Teeth<\/em> (2012), City Of Gold<\/em><\/a> (2014), Stand In The Fire<\/em> (2016), Striker<\/em> (2017) and aforementioned Play To Win<\/em>, were strong, the band seemed a tad burnt out, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

This new outing kicks off with the crunch of \u2018Circle Of Evil\u2019 and if the band had continued with such a flurry then I\u2019d have been convinced that Striker were back to their best, but this album, unfortunately, has too many cringe worthy pitfalls to overcome. Sure, this is a humorous opus brimming with energy, but at times it resorts to the ridiculous, such as on the fluffy \u2018Live To Fight Another Day\u2019, the bratty Ugly Kid Joe-like high school dross \u2018Sucks To Suck\u2019 and funk metal tripe \u2018City Calling\u2019.<\/p>\n

If this album had emerged in 1992 we\u2019d have branded it wet, cheesy and intolerable, and that\u2019s exactly how I feel now. The band also has a tendency to drift towards 80s nostalgia (\u2018Give It All\u2019 and \u2018Best Of The Best Of The Best\u2019) suggesting more confusion in such a mixed bag, and that\u2019s a shame because vocalist Dan Cleary has a strong set of pipes and the riffs on display can be real meaty torrents. However, with such inconsistencies contained within, Striker\u2019s latest ball deflates very quickly.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STRIKERUltrapower Record Breaking (2024)Rating: 6\/10 After a trickle of singles over the last few years, Edmonton, Alberta-based metal act Striker is done with the teasing and finally unleashes its first full-length studio album for six years after 2018 opus Play To Win. The Canadian mob caused quite a stir with their 2010 debut Eyes In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1417],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-striker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102348,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102347\/revisions\/102348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}