{"id":85927,"date":"2020-09-04T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T23:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=85927"},"modified":"2020-09-06T16:20:21","modified_gmt":"2020-09-06T15:20:21","slug":"album-review-airforce-strike-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-airforce-strike-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"AIRFORCE – Strike Hard (2020) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

AIRFORCE
Strike Hard<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nPitch Black (2020)<\/span>
Rating: 4\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cScream for me London!\u201d<\/em> I cry in bad imitation of Iron Maiden\u2019s Bruce Dickinson, as I stand agog at an album that for all intent and purposes tries to ape the mercurial Iron\u2019s frontman in voice.<\/p>\n

Strike Hard<\/em> is the second full-length release from UK metal act Airforce. The London-based band features ex-Iron Maiden drummer Doug Sampson and were actually formed back in 1987, although their retrospective debut record never saw the light of day until 2016. Unfortunately, new vocalist Flavio Lino really is a blemish on what is otherwise a steely landscape. Lino is a clone of ol\u2019 Dicko and that just doesn\u2019t sit comfortably with me as Strike Hard<\/em> coughs up 11 mostly lengthy-ish tracks that for the most part are metal-by-numbers in guise.<\/p>\n

Tracks such as \u2018Son Of The Damned\u2019, \u2018Finest Hour\u2019, \u2018I Feel Your Pain\u2019 and \u2018The Reaper\u2019 (featuring guest vocals from Vision Divine\u2019s Ivan Giannini) ramble with no real conviction, except as a tribute to Iron Maiden at their most mediocre. The problem is, the vocals become an irritant \u2013 dirt in the eye, an ulcer on the lip, a wart on the arse \u2013 which is a shame, because musically the band is a steady machine of steel.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fight\u2019 and the war-torn heroics of \u2018Band Of Brothers\u2019 are sturdy if somewhat formulaic tracks taking us back to the heady gallops of classic New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, but why oh why would the guys enlist a third-grade Bruce Dickinson to get their voice across? In fact, by the time I\u2019ve reached the final stages of \u2018Band Of Brothers\u2019, I\u2019m bored and confused, waiting for Eddie to pop his raggy head out of the darkest corner.<\/p>\n

The chesty rasp of former Iron Maiden frontman Paul Di\u2019Anno makes a guest appearance on the stony \u2018Don\u2019t Look In Her Eyes\u2019. However, by the time \u2018War Games\u2019 chugs on to the battlefield I\u2019m battered by another slightly tuneless warble, somehow attempting to swat away those pipes of pain from Lino in order to envoy the music, but alas, no, as Airforce meanders through a batch of rather watery pale anthems suitable for the greasy biker pub circuit.<\/p>\n

Tales of battles and war rage on forevermore as \u2018The War Inside\u2019 reminds me of why I lost interest in Iron Maiden in 1991. To be fair, \u2018Die For You\u2019 in its sombre guise is a steady, mid-paced rocker, but the clich\u00e9s are all too many, although will no doubt be lapped up by the more feral humans among us.<\/p>\n

Finally, the album closes with a cover rendition of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band\u2019s \u2018Faith Healer\u2019, which includes a guest solo from original SAHB guitarist Zal Cleminson. <\/p>\n

Sadly, on the evidence of Strike Hard<\/em>, Airforce is a band I just cannot take seriously; for every positive there are a million metallic negatives, mostly made up of Flavio Lino\u2019s dire vocal croons that send me off to the land of nod in a heartbeat. For peace of mind of mind I\u2019d give this one a miss.<\/p>\n

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

AIRFORCEStrike Hard Pitch Black (2020)Rating: 4\/10 \u201cScream for me London!\u201d I cry in bad imitation of Iron Maiden\u2019s Bruce Dickinson, as I stand agog at an album that for all intent and purposes tries to ape the mercurial Iron\u2019s frontman in voice. Strike Hard is the second full-length release from UK metal act Airforce. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4549,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airforce","category-album-ep-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85927","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=85927"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85930,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85927\/revisions\/85930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}