Stainless Steel - Wigant
Hammer Music
Power Metal
17 songs (49:49)
Release year: 2000
Stainless Steel
Reviewed by Crims
Surprise of the month

Hungary has a very strong Metal scene, and always have. Specializing in mostly traditional/power and black metal few bands break out into the international metal scene as the majority of these bands sing in Hungarian. Here is one exception though. Introduced to me by a Hungarian friend, Stainless Steel plays a very traditional style of Power Metal that is at once memorable and refreshing.

Most Power Metal bands these days have either over the top keyboards or extra-heavy guitars that take away from the melodies of the music. Some times these bands are very successful, but regardless it’s nice to hear a band stick to the roots of Power Metal and still remain as close as possible to the Iron Maiden sound, while taking it to the next level and beyond just simple NWOBHM. Sure, bands were doing this back in 1985 and possibly earlier, but like bay-area Thrash, it’s a sub-genre with few new bands and what’s worse, many old bands in the genre have “evolved” their sound. This is where Stainless Steel comes in. What makes these Hungarians successful is they’re able to create memorable and catchy melodies strictly from well-thought out vocal melodies and guitar melodies. The guitars have a definite Iron Maiden style to them, but Keeper’s era Helloween and Accept work their way into the music as well. Some riffs and leads even sound like Stormrider/Burnt Offerings era Iced Earth. Though all these bands have essentially the same musical influence source they each take the Iron Maiden sound into a different direction and Stainless Steel show us all these “directions” throughout the CD. This a very good thing because every song stands on its own and makes listening to this CD repeatedly very pleasurable. Wigant doesn’t get boring, tired, or repetitive, instead, Stainless Steel has managed to craft each song with unique riffs, vocals, and rhythms, with all aspects of the band remaining within the realm of traditional Power Metal.

I can’t stress enough how good the guitars are. The playing is good, it’s not overly technical or anything like that, it’s just that they remain so dynamic throughout the entire CD. This is especially true with the leads, which are excellent. Moreover, folk riffs and leads work their way into the music as well. The lyrics are based on The Lay Of The Nibelungen folk tale, so it is very appropriate for the guitars to take on a bit of folk-ish feel occasionally. The bass from Gergely Maros also has moments of glory and is routinely found up front in the mix while adding some extra depth to the music, though it knows when to drop back to the low end in favor of the guitars. On the other side of the rhythm section is some quality drumming. Just as the guitars are decisively varied, so is the drumming. The change ups come often enough that drummer Péter Kovács doesn’t rely on any one style. There is still plenty of double bass and galloping rhythms though, so you speed freaks don’t need to worry. To compliment these fast rhythms are plenty of mid-paced and NWOBHM styled upbeat (but without double bass) rhythms.

Stainless Steel has clearly established to me that musically they are skilled and their song writing abilities are very strong. The only weak point in the band is the vocals. Most of the time they’re good, being mostly in the mid to high range but every now and then vocalist Dániel Jurásek sounds completely out of key. Part of the reason is his thick accent, the other reason is his lack of range. He pronounces most words differently than native English speakers would and some words start to sound out of key because of this. The accent does make most vocal lines take on an interesting melody but it also makes some vocal sections sound completely flat. It’s weird, sometimes Jurásek is bang on and sounds great and other times he completely botches the vocal line which isn’t very different from the one he just nailed. The band also uses the HammerFall style of deep back up vocals for most of their choruses. Due to the strong song writing the gang vocals are almost every bit as successful as they are on HammerFall’s best songs as I’ve been catching myself singing half of these songs when I don’t even have the CD on.

The story of the CD is told reasonably well throughout the songs along with Nightfall in Middle-Earth styled breaks in between almost every track. Usually these breaks consist of two people talking and revealing important plot points in the story meant to set up the next song. Some might find it kind of silly and the acting is somewhat laughable at times, though I can imagine it would sound just as silly if I tried to act in the Hungarian language. Nevertheless, in case there was any doubt, the short passages remind you that you’re listening to a concept CD.

I should also mention that the production sounds like a louder version of most 80’s Power Metal. In some ways it’s similar to the production that Nocturnal Rites used on their first couple of CDs as well as what Crystal Eyes used. It goes perfectly with the music and most importantly, it always allows the listener to take in the wonderful vocal and guitar melodies without any distractions like over produced double kicks or rhythm guitars. Despite the occasional vocal shortcomings I highly recommend this release to fans of pure, traditional Power Metal the way it used to be played.

Killing Songs :
A Great Adventure, For The Glory Of Worms, The Mission, The Journey, The Final Act
Crims quoted 80 / 100
Other albums by Stainless Steel that we have reviewed:
Stainless Steel - Red Heat Within reviewed by Crims and quoted 75 / 100
1 readers voted
Average:
 100
Your quote was: 100.
Change your vote

There are 6 replies to this review. Last one on Wed Dec 22, 2004 1:42 am
View and Post comments