Flying Tigers-White Wizzard

White Wizzard is back and better than ever with their new record Flying Tigers. With fun and playful New Wave Of British Heavy Metal inspired songs this album keeps rocking and takes White Wizzard to new heights. The guitar sound is addictive with dozens of Maiden-esque riffs to keep most metal fans happy. The bass is simply amazing, Jon Leons is probably one of the greatest bassists under the age of 30 and he rocks it on this album. The drums are solid and incorporate fills that are reminiscent of Judas Priest drummer Scott Travis. The vocals are varied and the epitome of the NWOBHM style singer with notes that are held out for bars and shrieks reminiscent of the classic Painkiller album Wyatt Anderson truly takes this album to a new level.

The guitar sound on this album is among the best that I have heard this year. With high powered 80s metal tracks like Fight to the Death to the slower more arena rock inspired tracks like Starchild the guitars show a variety of influences and a whole lot of technical skill. One of the reasons why White Wizzard is one of my favorite bands is their harmonized guitar lines and this album features no shortage of that on the intros to many of their more hard rocking tracks. The riffs often scream of Judas Priest (occasionally a little too much) with long open chords held for bars on end. In the meantime the solos are electric and feature a lot of flashiness and have a bit of a Dokken feel even. It is my general opinion that the guitars on this record outmatch almost every other New Wave of NWOBHM band from the past couple years.

The bass on this album... let's just say I am 95% certain that Steve Harris is using this Jon Leons guy as some sort of alter ego. What I'm trying to say is that Jon Leons is a bass god. His crowning track is probably Fall of Atlantis which features a huge bass line during the chorus. Yet in general Leons bass is solid and powerful and allows for a huge bottom end sound. However on some tracks it comes over a little too well and becomes a bit to repetitive like on Starchild. The drums too are solid and show off nice and steady British riffs for your rhythm lovin'. None of the drum riffs are too fast or furious but they all get the job done in the good old 80s style. All in all the rhythm section of White Wizzard is powerful featuring a killer bass and solid NWOBHM style drumming.

So now we have the vocals, and boy these vocals are something. The vocalist that Wyatt Anderson sounds most like is Rob Halford. He can do everything Halford can with the same energy power and fiery aura. Anderson's shrieks are never overused and rarely intrude onto the verses. Instead they are used to add fire and spice to the ends of choruses. Asides from his ability to shriek Anderson can really belt it out like he does in the track Night Stalker. Because of his voice Anderson is a huge aspect as to why Wizzard is better than most of the new 80s metal acts out there. The lyrics here are mostly based on fantasy and romance topics. A typical couplet of White Wizzard is heard on the track Blood on the Pyramids which go: Stars possess the minds of men/ Singing up to the skies. This exemplifies the type of fun fantasy lyrics found on this record.

In conclusion White Wizzard second full length album is excellent and proves that they are here to stay. With a sound that truly brings back the 80s Wizzard proves that they are far and away one of the greatest acts of the decade. With a roaring guitar sound reminiscent of the legends and a bass that is more Steve Harris than Steve Harris these guys show they can do it all on 4 strings or 6. In the meantime the drums prove that you don't have to batter 16ths on the toms to be a genius. Finally the vocals and lyrics of Anderson set White Wizzard a cut above the rest. Go check this album out people, these guys are gunna be huge.

OVERALL 9.5/10