Steel Assassin-War of the eight saints

Sentinel Steel
2007

I was going through various Myspace pages back in the beginning of summer an stumbled upon this band. The band name sounded very familiar then I was enlightened to the fact that they were on Metal Massacre 6 back in 1984. That would be were I knew them from as I heard most of those compilations back in the 1980's. They actually formed as a cover band back in 1980, but broke up in 1985 after failing to secure a record deal. However fast forward two decades and in 2005 the band reformed with a 4/5 original line-up, added a new vocalist and begun work on their debut which would be released 27 years after the band first formed. Talk about better late than never, this is pure denim and leather, hard hitting mid-1980's style metal. Steel Assassin have grinded out a seriously monstrous assault very much influenced by the likes of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Armored Saint and Dio. They even combine some of the influences in the same track and bring some ideas of their own in the form of oftentimes rapid pace changes and twists. The lyrics are of the fantasy/mythology camp and it works just fine here. We get eleven songs with six of them going over six minutes including the closing title track which is just a crushing epic that clocks in at over ten minutes. It's a shame these guys didn't get signed back around 84-85 because I would have loved this back, but I love it now too. Steel Assassin work and maneuver as they create some finely crafted songs that are strong on melodies and backed by a blistering array of hooks and ripping guitars. Not a whole lot of new ideas here, but just a tremendous stampede of killer metal.

http://www.myspace.com/steelassassin