Judgement Day

Airforce is a British heavy metal band, active since 1987 and featuring, among others, Doug Sampson - former Iron Maiden drummer. Despite the fact that the band has been active on the music market for many years, it has only two albums to its credit. The retrospective "Judgement Day" was released in 2016 and it is concidered a "debut". I received this release from the band itself in a digital version, and in the package, in addition to the high-quality music files, I could also find the cover artwork (despite its considerable weight, however, it is very blurry) and a very nice biographical note, which also includes a full discography and line-up. Pretty cool, but how about the music?

"Debut" album of Airforce contains tracks recorded over many years: the individual parts of "Judgement Day" were recorded in 1987, 1993, 2010 and 2016 - and sometimes with completely different lineups. It's safe to say, then, that this album is like a "best of," but containing tracks that, for some reason, have never seen the light of day before. With an album of this type, it may be natural to be concerned about the consistency of the material contained on it: after all, over almost 30 years of playing together, the group's style can change seriously. "Judgement Day," however, sticks to the musical framework set in the 1980s: we get structurally simple, insanely upbeat numbers that would have reigned on radio stations three decades ago. So hard rock mixes here with heavy metal, but in this "softened" version - with guitars being more in the background.

Most of the classic groups of the time failed miserably by commercializing their sound. Airforce however is... not bad. Not bad at all. Aside from the bland "Get Me a Doctor" the "Judgement Day" contains basically just the hits. We have both fast, reminiscent of the achievements of American groups (is that why the music of the Brits is so popular overseas?) tracks like "Why Has It Come to This", "Melody in Me" or "Fine Line", as well as those a bit calmer, kept at a medium pace, such as, led by a nice bass line, "War Games". Brilliant work is done on the entire release by Chop Pitman - basically every song has an impressive, catchy solo by this gentleman, and "Heroes", thanks to it, grows from a mediocre to an ornament of the album. Big applause! Despite the fact that we can hear as many as four vocalists on the album, three of them have very similar, slightly rough timbre of voice (great Fred Ball!) - so we do not get the impression of dealing with completely different line-ups. The one exception is Sam Sampson, who sings higher, but the three tracks featuring him, with their mellow synth lines, are so "eighties" that they fit this retro-styled "Judgement Day" like a glove.

Airforce's first official album is a very interesting, but little-known release. It resembles a compilation of the greatest hits of a group, which celebrated its greatest successes in the 1980s - except that the Brits formed at the end of that decade, and wrote most of the compositions after 1990. It's wildly catchy, heavily archaic, a bit kitschy in places but it doesn't bother me at all. On the contrary: thanks to this retro atmosphere I thoroughly enjoyed the sounds of these experienced musicians. The only thing I can really complain about is the sound of some instruments in individual tracks. However, I trust that on the second album everything will already play in an appropriate way.

Originally written for www.metalside.pl