If you were to listen to Pounder without any knowledge of its members you could be rightfully thinking that here is an outfit which sounds very seasoned and schooled in metal history without having any notoriety or publicity. But a little bit of research into the trio of Pounder members reveals prolific Matt Harvey (Exhumed and many others), Tom Draper, who is the second guitarist of the reborn Carcass and bass player Alejandro Corredor, who is rather known for his propensity for mixing, engineering and otherwise button twiddling (Inquisition, Nausea). Differing backgrounds, or not, between these three dudes composing Pounder it is little doubt that the band goes for thrashy gruff old school NWOBHM with booming bottom and dirty guitar sound. A very standard song structure of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus-repeat on the title track of Faster than Fire EP works only to further emphasize all of the hooks Pounder came up with for the song’s chorus. The opening of The Last Stand is harmonized to stretch into the chorus, and throughout those two songs Pounder is also not afraid to show off fluidity of their solos. I guess when you are a second fiddle on Carcass, as Tom Draper is, guitar wizardry comes with the appointment. With a touch of an American Helstar or UK Saxon or Raven angle Pounder straddles both sides of the pond geographically, but temporally they are very much stuck in the early part of 80s.

Just as hooky, but less metal, Come Alive starts almost balladic, but progresses onto hard rock with stadium fist throwing tendency, showing that Pounder members are not averse to more muscular version of something glammier like King Kobra either. The longing solo fluidity (again) contrasts the chopped up verse.

It is said that the LP is in the works, and if the bigger part of it will be like the title track or The Last Stand the album is going to be a solid trip down memory lane with redeeming qualities to it. Who else but Shadow Kingdom is to release this type of historic material?