VOLSTER
“PERFECT STORM”
Album Review by Iron Mathew

8/10

Volster are a hard rock band from Sweden formed in 2013 featuring ex members of Masquerade and House Of Heavy. The bands debut album was released in 2018.

Hitting hard and punching harder, the debut album by Swedish hard rockers Volster blasts off with the bombastic ‘King Of The Hill’. Immediately infectious and full to the brim with addictiveness, ‘King Of The Hill’ is top notch hard hitting hard rock, and a cracking album opener. The album is loaded with twelve songs across fifty two minutes, with Volster increasing the intensity with the thunderous ‘Heaven Or Hell’. Clean and clear vocals overlay a sound that emerged during the eighties and nineties with the sleaze metal/rock genre, with iconic bands such as Skid Row, Ratt, Cinderella and Faster Pussycat forging a path that many have followed. The title song ‘Perfect Storm’ sees Volster increase the heaviness and foot stomp aggressively on. ‘Perfect Storm’ (the song) is all hustle and bustle as it swaggers on its way. Upping the tempo and injecting a massive amount of energy, ‘Breathless’ is beefy, muscular and hits harder than a UFC champion. Touches of the American style of hard rock is entwined within ‘Breathless’, keeping the song striding forward with pace and purpose.

Get those lighters at the ready, here comes a ballad, nope, wait, hang on, with a title of ‘Still In Love’, the expectation was that this would be a ballad, but nope, after a mellower opening, the thunderous rhythms return, with ‘Still In Love’ a rampaging romp. Put those lighters down and raise your clenched fist high instead. Sweden has a long tradition of producing hard rock bands, a tradition that began back in the mid eighties with the mighty Europe. Volster continue that tradition in emphatic style, with the menacingly chilling ‘Babylon’. Slower and much heavier than anything heard so far, ‘Babylon’ has streaks of doom style riffing running through it. Moving swiftly to a different genre, Volster inject the Southern rock style to their debut album in the shape of ‘Hero’, with every guitar riff blues influenced. A swinging and foot tappingly addictive romp, ‘Hero’ is a song to raise a beer bottle to, all the while watching dancers strut their stuff on the table in front of you. The infectious buzz style guitar sound, so back of the arms hair raising effect it has, ‘Games Of War’ delivers this kind of feeling in abundance. Still maintaining the albums hard rock edge, ‘Games Of War’ is one of the highlights off the album.

Introducing a more melodic feel to the album, ‘Easier Said Than Done’ also touches AOR as it walks majestically past. Volster have proven, with their first full length offering, that they are a powerhouse band of hard rock, with plenty of experience throughout the band and a passion for delivering feel good rock. Swedish hard rock is in very good hands with Volster forging a path through the genre. ‘I Don’t Care’ is hard hitting, punchy and bustling, the album hitting the forty five minute mark without a ballad in sight, whoops, spoke too soon, or did I . . . ? ‘Drifting Away’ opens with a much mellower sound and acoustic fuelled, before becoming an AOR/melodic hard rock romp of too much heaviness to be a ballad. The chorus however, will have you swaying from side to side and singing along, but do keep those lighters tucked away, as they are definitely not a requirement here. ‘Ends With Me’ brings the album to a close in a blaze of the hardest hitting melodic rock on offer. Swinging through the hard rock, AOR and Southern rock genres, ‘Ends With Me’ ends the album how it began fifty minutes ago…in bombastic style with high amounts of infectiousness.

Overall, hard hitting melodic hard rock with touches of AOR, Volster deliver their debut album stacked high with infectious and catchy songs.

TRACKLIST

King Of The Hill
Heaven Or Hell
Perfect Storm
Breathless
Still In Love
Babylon
Hero
Games Of War
Easier Said Than Done
I Don’t Care
Drifting Away
Ends With Me

http://volster.wixsite.com/volsterband
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