The Age of Ice

Cyberpunk fans beware! I can't get enough of yet further promising German trad metal outfit in form of Remscheid (North-Rhine, Westphalia) duo Atom Smasher, frosty, expedient authors of late November, two track, eleven minute EP titled The Age of Ice, released under Rome's Gates of Hell Records.

While no big fan of its febrile, treble imposed production, I instantly took to title song's weirdly trumpet-y and wheezing opening guitar riff/slappy drum beat which yields crashing, yet no less indubitably synchronized, Blizzen meets Lord Fist-type pyrotechnics, the lot confounded by front/rhythm axe man Gordon Overkill's starkly nasal or knavishly twisted, Gargamel-like caws - bringing to enraptured mind a vague cross between Pentagram's iconic Bobby Liebling and Megaton Sword's Uzzy Unchained...uh, pass the piccalilli, please!

For all of "The Age of Ice" proper's catchyness and zestful appeal - from its arcane, cryptic story line and bumptious, Cirith Ungol-ian bass solo, to infectiously zing-ing choral lick and return to jaunty Encino Man form - the following, seven minute long "There Lives A Beast Within This Cave" cements Atom Smasher as veritable nwothm contender, alongside, say, Chalice, Ignitor, Satan's Fall, Vänlade and those already mentioned.

Starting with clean, elegiac progressive chants and guitar before setting off a glowing chain reaction of lankily bacchanalian NWOBHM overtures a la Convent Guilt or Holocaust, this simply never lets up, straight up and down the frayed, coastal roadway which is the hard-wired and vehemently attacking power lead.

Such tightly palmed, classic early 80s style metal also harks to similarly frigorific acts such as Glacier and Ice War, from Portland and Ottawa; the former owing to Gordon's intricate riff work and The Judge's fiery soloing (his bass and drums on both tracks are highly audible and pronounced, as well), the latter in terms of general conviviality, albeit still suffering from slight technical rigor, alluded so, above. Still, Atom Smasher yield none-too-microscopic tidings under its radar.