You love Tank, right? You know, that NWOBHM band that everyone always forgets about and only seems to get love from black/thrash-heads? What cruel mockery it is that Tank somehow gets second billing behind Venom, Warfare, etc. They wrote catchy rock songs heavily influenced by Motörhead‘s ‘Overkill’ early on, yanked out huge Zeppelin riffs as they got bigger, and are one of the most underrated things to come from the best wave. Why am I rambling about Tank in a review for a 7″ debut from German heavy metal band Pulver? Because you’ll go apeshit for their self-titled EP if you love bands like Tank, Fist, and ‘Stand Up and Fight’ era Quartz. The candor, the riffs and the impassioned delivery is all there in spades.

The guitar work from, tone to stones, is heavily informed by classic heavy metal and should be instantly appealing to 80’s metal fans. David Fröhlich’s vocals have the cadence of early Hallow’s Eve in the slower moments but largely resemble those of Tank‘s Algy Ward. There is some kind of addictive mystique to “Twilight Magic” and it’s guitar work, I mean you’ve heard this ‘middle-eastern’ sort of guitar work applied to rock and heavy metal a thousand times over but, it is easily one of the most memorable tracks of 2018 for me so far. I’d say the guitar work’s pace and classic heavy metal feel goes a long way to make Pulver stand out in the field of present day 80’s influenced heavy metal. “Salvation” ties into “Twilight Magic” a bit too in terms of epic, spiraling guitar work and dual-guitar leads.

‘Pulver’ is a great introduction to a promising project, and sticks out in my mind this year along with Speedclaw in terms of old fashioned approaches done right in 2018. The guitar work is the star here so if you’re too impatient to sit through a full 13 minute EP I’d suggest going straight to “Twilight Magic” first, but hey “Howl” resembles pre-‘Power of the Hunter’ Tank so perfectly that it’d be a shame to skip over. Hugely recommended to NWOBHM and epic heavy metal fans alike.

Death at your doorstep. 4.0/5.0

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