• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Battle Raider is a Mexican band mining the tried-and-true 80s US Power Metal vein on their second album, Battle Raider. Crunchy guitars, high-pitched vocals steeped in echo and even the cheesy album art are throwbacks to the "golden age". I liked Battle Raider the first time I listened but by the second run-through the flaws became painfully obvious. The singer has a good voice for the style but he's flat, he's on key, he's sharp, he's all over the place. I thought it was a Tim Baker kind of thing where I would realize how the unorthodox delivery suited the music but he's just not very good. The songwriting is old school on tracks like "Flying Fingers" and "Hard Flyer" but then it starts to meander and by the end of "A Sioux Prayer", I'm lost. I can sort of hear what Battle Raider are going for, but they are so short on the execution, it makes their second album more of a chore than anything else. Back to the drawing board.