The Gauntlet- Dark Steel and Fire album review (Eternal Death)

Bandcamp: https://eternaldeath.bandcamp.com/album/dark-steel-and-fire

Listen, fuck all the cornball shit out there. If you ever wanted to drive your motorcycle through your local Wal-Mart and destroy shit this is the fucking record to be blasting. I love a great metal record. It could be death, black, thrash, speed, NWOBHM, whatever but there are things you have to nail IMO. Riffs, tone, vocal styling, drumming. I'm a picky motherfucker. Not because I'm on some gatekeeper shit but because there is so much BAD metal out there that's a hodgepodge of dumbassery. The bad shit fucking hurts me because it's SO BAD. 

But when The Gauntlet puts this shit together, you have album of the year. Already. In Jan-u-fucking-ary. 

"Beyond the Limits" is fucking power. Get me to the 57 second mark and I'm chopping vegetables in the kitchen for dinner like a psychopath. Vegan gumbo jawn infused by fucking chainmail, exhaust, and Satan. 

"CAN YOU HEAR THE SOUND?" on "Signal To Attack" and that fucking riff. Yeah, ready to burn down Wal-Mart. Let's do this shit.

"Winds Without Mercy" is that unknown song from your heshed friend's mixtape that you can't pinpoint but it fucking rules. 

This record straddles a couple of genres and that's perfect. If it came out in 1984, it would be goddamn legendary. While it's nothing wholly "new" (what is new in metal?), it's just so well done. I raise my chalice to New Jersey for The Gauntlet, Altar of Gore, and Blasphematory. Come to Butthole Ohio (all three bands please) and scorch this hellhole. 

Now the cover art... I'm not sold on the cover art but ultimately IT IS what led me to check out this record because I was like WTF is this? I spent way too much time thinking about what suitable art would be and I can't come up with anything that would work for me and would meet the lofty songwriting skill. It gets a pass because it somehow works. 

That said, there is a reason that this sold out before release. It fucking rules.