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Iron Angel > Winds of War > Reviews
Iron Angel - Winds of War

Charging for Battle with a Rush of Power - 92%

bayern, May 18th, 2017

Although the reason why I decided to revisit Iron Angel’s back catalogue some ten years ago was the release of the awful “Back from Hell” demo, about which the guys should forget faster than Destruction did about their mid-90’s period (yeah, it’s that bad), I was quite glad that I did since it reminded me of how jubilant I was listening to this happy-go-lucky speed metal barrage on the album reviewed here in my teenage years, feeling also content with the fact that I had found “Walls of Jericho”’s little “brother”, only served with a more mainstream flavour. Although the guys were the first German “victims” of the mid-80’s transformation campaign (Motley Crue, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden) towards a mellower, poppier sound, they still managed to retain quite a bit of their aggressive swagger that made their debut such a compulsive headbanging fest.

The debut was a compelling speed/thrash affair with audible attempts at more individual ways of expression. However, the sophomore here shows an obvious fascination with the mentioned Helloween magnum opus, and it remains its most faithful companion all these years including with the more commercial radio-friendly additives, and not only because of Dick Shroder’s “Kai Hansen meets Udo”-like vocals. The stomping officiant intro that is the title-track abruptly turns into a ball of speed metal fury on “Metalstorm” which couldn’t have been titled more appropriately, a short bursting speedster that almost exemplifies the German speed metal scene in its entirety. “Son of a Bitch” is not an Accept cover, contrary to the expectations, but is a great uplifting power metal anthem with a nearly stadium-filling potential with the rousing shouty chorus and the brisk bouncy rhythms. “Vicious” has a smattering pounding beginning, but after it it’s business as usual the band unleashing a whirlwind of fast lashing guitars turning this number into another shining example of pure speed metal “carnage” done right. “Born to Rock” has a very clear message from the very title, and this is indeed a fist-pumping heavy rocker worthy of Accept and Scorpions with a staged live setting echoing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”.

Far from embarrassment, this number remains the only full-fledged probe into the growing pop-metalish aesthetics on the field, and is totally cancelled by “Fight for Your Life”, a vigorous speed/thrash with biting cutting guitars, arguably the band’s finest achievement, offering myriad time and tempo-changes, a shredding fest of epic proportions nearly matched by “Stronger than Steel” which stomping intro reminds of Exciter’s “Scream in the Night” from “Violence & Force”; furious speed metal is thrown at the expectant audience later, a soaring “eagle fly free” cavalcade with the next in line sing-along chorus embedded into the hyper-active melee. “Sea of Flames” serves a tasteful portion of melodic leads as “an appetizer” which precedes another fast-paced carnival mixed with more laid-back power metal, the melodic hooks appearing later again to wrap it on. “Creatures of Destruction” is a brilliant angry speed metaller the guys raising hell as a logical conclusion to this impressive slab of old school metal which actual finale is the cool short balladic “Back to the Silence” with Schroder showing his more lyrical, more passionate vocal arsenal to a really positive effect.

German speed metal couldn’t have come much better than here, and apart from the early Helloween exploits and Living Death’s “Metal Revolution” it’s probably only the first two Scanner instalments that managed to capture the movement’s invigorating charm as profoundly, not siding that readily with the more aggressive thrash-prone debuts of Angel Dust, Exumer and Paradox, and Blind Guardian’s first two. The mentioned friendlier ingredients boded “danger” for eventual future recordings as one never knew how far the guys would be willing to reach exploring their more tender side. In this train of thought their very early disappearance, one of the earliest in metal history as a matter of fact, may have been for the better cause no one wanted to see prime German speed metallers releasing “Cold Lake” or “Eat the Heat” before those albums were even conceived on the mental plane.

The old school resurrection wave brought the Iron Angels back into the game, and although the first showing (the mentioned demo) after the reformation had better be forgotten, the more recent weather forecasts hint at potential strong winds (of war) stirring somewhere in the distance…

Bonjovi sits back and relaxes - 72%

Felix 1666, December 24th, 2016
Written based on this version: 1986, 12" vinyl, Steamhammer

First things first, "Winds of War" is, despite its really kitschy artwork, a fine effort from an objective point of view. It holds a couple of pretty fast tracks which score with robust riffs, concise choruses and the vigorous performance of lead singer Dirk Schröder who makes good use of his variable voice. The remaining tunes are more or less solid, maybe with the exception of one downer that begs for a place in the next garbage bin. But okay, one might say that nobody is immune against a failure every now and then. Thus, there is actually no reason to cry. As said before, a fine effort.

The problem is that the predecessor of "Winds of War", Iron Angel's debut, was so much stronger than the here reviewed full-length. It sounds rather ironic, but the winds of war are blown away by the band's first work. However one looks at the two albums, the sophomore full-length draws the shorter straw. The aforementioned downer "Born to Rock" with its crude, commercial approach only marks the tip of the iceberg. Gang Green had an eponymous, similarly constructed piece on "You Got It". Both bands seem to have the ambition to beat Bonjovi with his own weapons. Needless to say that this idea was doomed to failure. Bonjovi delivers endless streams of commercial shit and no one can defeat the excrement expert on his own soil. Okay, this embarrassing attempt to get airplay remained an isolated case, but it matched the airy costumes of the band members which were shown on the back cover. Furthermore, it was aligned with the new sound of Iron Angel. The sinister atmosphere of "Hellish Crossfire" did no longer exist. The clear yet powerful production lacked of dark elements and the lyrics had lost any "satanic" approach. Iron Angel rode roughshod over the expectation of their fans and the only reason for this was probably their greed. We all like to get money for our work, but this does not mean that we do everything for money, right?

Well, I do not want to be too harsh with my previous heroes. The fast, double-bass driven and straight "Vicious", the best, darkest and most intensive song of "Winds of War", challenges the highlights of "Hellish Crossfire", "Metalstorm" shows the new maturity of the band in its best light and the entire B side of the vinyl avoids rather half-hearted songs such as "Sea of Flames". The grim "Creatures of Destruction" is almost as intense as "Vicious", only its chorus does not have the same impressive effect. Anyway, from an overall point of view, nobody can deny that Iron Angel had changed from a black thrash squadron to a speed metal combo with a small dose of traditional metal and rock elements. Almost each and every song possesses more melodies than the entire debut and I cannot say that this pretty radical change enthuses me. Nevertheless, I must say once again that "Winds of War" is not a bad work. Definitely not flawless and suffering - among other things - from its emotional, rather shitty outro, but still equipped with a solid substance. It is not an album for the mainstream and exactly this fact makes obvious that Iron Angel did not really know in which direction they wanted to go. The end of the story is well known. The actually highly talented formation vanished into thin air while non-fickle groups such as Sodom, Kreator or Living Death made their way. Guess that the Metal God (no, I am not speaking about Rob Halford) knows what he is doing.

Cloudy bosoms, electric wrath - 72%

autothrall, January 10th, 2011

It can often seem a gray area to what distinguishes 'speed' and 'thrash' or 'speed' and 'power' metal, especially when the definitions shift through both time and several entirely new listener bases of the genres, but I do feel like Iron Angel's sophomore Winds of War drifts away from the impeccable speed/thrash momentum of their great debut Hellish Crossfire, and too often veers into the standard hard rocking, traditional metal territory. There were always hints of this on the debut, but they're in full force on about half the tracks here, and the harder hitting material has become rare. Ah well, what can you expect when you've gone from clashes with demonic angels to a well endowed cloud goddess super-charging a sword wielding hesher with lightning?

"Metalstorm", the tune that directly follows the marching, narrated title track intro does try and fool us into thinking it might be something special, like "The Metallian". The explosive, rapid melodic guitars sound like a precursor to Riot's "Thundersteel", and Dirk Schröder's vocals shift through a lower Kai Hansen tone to wailing heights, but match up to the riffs with no shortage of aggression. But all too much of the album is your standard Accept or NWOBHM-derived fare like "Son of a Bitch", "Born to Rock", nothing offensive or poorly written, but you wonder why such blazers as "Creatures of Destruction" or "Stronger Than Steel" weren't shoved to the fore, or even the great power metal leanings of "Sea of Flames". I often found Schröder's screams to be annoying here, but his lower pitch is just as nasal and acidic as the debut, sure to send fans of Walls of Jericho or the Helloween EP into fits of ecstasy.

Winds of War is still a good album, with a number of catchy tracks that evoke the blessed bullet hail of classic German steel (I don't know how I could have grown up without that), but its forced 'phasing' technique is a distraction. It shifts from 'We're the band that wrote The Metallian' to 'We just want to fit in', and back again, where the former is clearly the Iron Angel we all want to hear. It almost comes off as frustrated, and I would be too, since the debut saw nowhere near the level of attention it should have. I've got no problem at the genetic level with the stock rock the band are trying to shell out, but it'd been done far better already and I wanted my head sheared off by the seraphic violence I was anticipating. Mileage may vary for those of you who actually prefer the slower paced, traditional burn, but either way, the gas tank is not full on this one, which sadly is their last full-length studio effort (to date).

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Speed! - 80%

NightOfTheRealm, May 21st, 2004

Like your speed metal? Damn right you do. Then why haven’t you checked out Iron Angel’s second and final album, WINDS OF WAR.

One of the finest German bands from the 80s, Iron Angel create a sound drawing influences of speed metal from Running Wild, raucous true metal like Accept, and, of course, some speed-thrash from early Destruction. WINDS OF WAR is more melodic, features more power-trad. influences on top of an excellent speed metal base, and also has a cleaner, less raw production. than the debut HELLISH CROSSFIRE.

The songwriting on the album, however, is not diminished in the least on WINDS OF WAR. Axemen Sven Strüven and Peter Wittke are as fine a duo as any guitar team playing this style. They are not quite up to par with the legendary teams of Tipton/Downing or Murray/Smith, but damned if they can’t lay down some punchy, catchy riffs and no shortage of kickass solos.

“Metalstorm” is the first actual track on the album, which would sound right at home on HELLISH CROSSFIRE. “Son of a Bitch” has an almost glam-ish melodic intro, and although it drops back a bit on speed, it makes up with plenty of catchy hooks. “Vicious” is everything its name implies, perhaps the fastest and heaviest song on the album. The mix on this song, and the rest of the album is dead-on: the production strikes a fine balance that is raw and natural enough, but with every instrument clear and audible. “Born to Rock” must have certainly been a concert hit, with an instant crowd-participation chorus. As if that isn’t enough, the Priest-ish “Fight for Your Life,” is next, followed by my favourite song on the album, “Stronger than Steel,” with its fucking awesome extended solos starting at 3:33. The last two tracks (track 10 is an outro) carry on in the same fashion, solid headbanging speed metal, though it is not *quite* as strong as the first seven tracks.

Also included on the Old Metal Records reissue of this album are 4 tracks taken from the band’s live performance in Germany, 1985. Although the recording is of poor quality, it is interesting to hear the band in its rawest form. I urge all metalheads to check out WINDS OF WAR. After 17 years, it’s still a speed metal classic.

(originally written by me for www.metal-rules.com, October, 2003)

More of the same, but more melodic - 76%

UltraBoris, November 12th, 2002

These guys definitely listened to their Walls of Jericho... this album combines Destruction and Helloween like the last one, but with more an influence of Helloween this time, especially on the second half of the album. The first song, Metalstorm, is straight-up speed metal that sounds like it should've been on the first album, while on the second track, Son of a Bitch, we get more of a groove going, that has the Accept-ish influence of Helloween thrown in a bit, combined with the more brutal effects of old Destruction.

Vicious is more brutal, while Born to Rock has more shrieky vocals and a nice over the top chorus, which continues in the same vein on Fight For Your Life. Then, we have Stronger than Steel, which is almost Blind-Guardian-ish at times (Battalions of Fear era) - very nice singalong chorus combined with the solid riff backbone that Iron Angel is known for - total headbanging material, and also a really great solo. Sea of Flames and Creatures of Destruction tend to go in this general direction, and while not quite as strong as Stronger than Steel, are also quite competent in their own rite. Back to the Silence is a bit of an outro piece.

Overall - it's more melodic than the first Iron Angel, and just as memorable. There really aren't any overt thrash moments to be found here, and we find more of a power metal influence at times, with a good sense of melody and some flashy leads to go with a great variety of vocals going from growling to screaming. All in all, well worth getting.