Hit n' Run

Cavorting cheek by jowl alongside fellow Londinium dweller Amulet is the fairly innocuous Night Screamer, which, leading up to its long-anticipated, not to mention grandly improved, 2019 full-length(ed) debut, Dead of Night (graced by dreadfully cool cover art), enjoyed a mild tour of the European heavy metal circuit succeeding two "middle-of-the-road" EP's from '14 and '15. The first, generically captioned Hit n' Run, features three progressively felicitous tracks sprawled over eleven and a half minutes of genially enthused, albeit lowbrow and sophomoric, hard-"driven" elegance.

Straight up, now, don't let this rather menial score deter you from scoping these guys - and girl - out. Despite sounding all too hackneyed and simplistic throughout the opening title track - imagine Iron Maiden's iconic main riff to "Two Minutes To Midnight" (blasphemously) stripped of its quicksilver dexterity and legendary melody - the seed of potential is readily gleaned during the dual guitarists' colorful yet perfunctorily phrased leads, notably on the second and third tracks, which subtly evoke the likes of Cauldron and Widow, both highly accessible and, at times, downright ribald acts in their own right.

Also, the lyrical content therein isn't much to write home about (don't waste your stamps!). Actually, the verses (and chorus) to "Hit n' Run" proper are relatively dumb and trite. Dig these roughneck lines: "You build men up/To throw them down/Now I'm broken up, Bruised fucked/Dead on the ground", or "Peel my body off the road/String it with the others/Another run and I'm disposed/Your Hit and run lover". Ouch! (Providing a touch of paradoxical cleanliness, however, is the placidly becalmed intermezzo preceding the solo.)

The considerably superior follow-up, "Praying For Yesterday", begins with a sparkling, natural harmonic-tinged shuffle a la Jake E. Lee before front man Gadd McFly - no relation to Marty - morosely genuflects at the altar of nocturnal yowls. That is, until a cleanly strummed bridge akin to Faith No More releases said clerk of the obsidian from his passionate crooning with a sticky and syrupy, yet cloyingly intense, solo which assures a revitalizing, as well as sanguine, endgame.

Closer and final cut "You'll Never Take Us Alive" steers Night Screamer's sputtering introduction towards vouch-saved and redeemable turf thanks to its clever, if not vastly ameliorated, lyrics. (Let's simply turn a blind[ed] eye to the fore-mentioned flop.) In general, the Hit n' Run EP assuages genre adepts who veer closer to the rock side of things, but judging from my minute token sampling of Dead of Night, will surely (not surly!) laud, far and wide, the merits of this stock(racing) newcomer...