Lancer
Second Storm

I gave Lancer a pretty hard time two years ago for being too much of a copy cat with their debut album. Now they’re back on a new record label and believe it or not, they’ve actually made songs that are even less original this time!

But we’ll start in the right end of things – what is good on this album? Well, they play their instruments first class, they have a neat production and they sound like an established and well financed band that know their way around things. The songs go in a nice mix between heavy and power metal, which isn’t too different from how the big bands in those genres make it. So the performance is good, no question about it! However… with all these tools working so well, how come they’re not even trying to make something constructive out of it?

Before I get in to the negative I’d like to give Lancer one more plus and that’s for succeeding with making the songs more varied than last time out, which was a pretty similar album all the way through. ‘Second Storm’ varies tempo, style and sound more but unfortunately it’s still plagiarism we’re talking and from going from maybe tree or four bands that had “inspired” them on the debut this has maybe seven or eight “sources of inspiration”. The originality is sadly once again heavily compromised in these nine tracks but the good news is that it actually is a couple of tracks that doesn’t sound like carbon copies and actually that’s what I wished for the most with this sequel.

So how does ‘Second Storm’ actually sound? Well, it’s an orgy of fast guitars, rattling drums and falsetto. The catchy choruses are there and so also the clichés in the lyrics. I think the only way this could sound more 80’s is if they had a more 80’s sound in the production because otherwise they’re pushing all the 80’s buttons there are to push. And I’m not going to lie to you, I like the power metal of the 80’s but I like originality even better and in the end that’s missing just as much as it did on their debut. I think a couple of songs have a more individual sound (like Iwo Jima and Aton) but they kind of hide that with several more songs that sounds like carbon copies (just listen to Running From The Tyrant and Steelbreaker as an example).

So what we have here is a product that you’ll probably like if you…
- are in to power metal…
- like metal 80’s style…
- have a weakness for fast metal with bombastic elements…
- doesn’t care whether it’s something new or not…
- think it’s good that new bands replace the older as the older are getting old regardless if the new bands got something new or not in their music…
Can you identify with any of the above then you’ll probably have a blast when you play your copy of this album. If you have more standards than that you’ll probably still like the album but not that much. And Lancer will never become respected if they keep copying songs instead of making something of their own. Plusses and minuses all adds up to nothing in the end, it’s better than their debut but they still lack originality.

HHHHHHH