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Berlin’s Thunder and Lightning are today’s featured artist, attacking the ears with a modern spin on the classic heavy metal riff.
Featuring some lovely crunching guitars and near-operatic vocals, the Berlin-based five piece celebrated ten years as a band in 2014. This year will be ten years since their debut release – 2005’s Gathering Storm. Since then they’ve had a fair few recordings out, climaxing in last year’s Slice of Life EP.
This is the one I have to hand, along with a bunch of older tracks, and the first thing I’ll say about the band is “professional”. From the recording quality to the music; their website to the publicity material, this is a band who are in it for the long run. Their music is of a high quality and they’re going all out to make sure everything around it is given the polish it deserves.
Slice of Life consists of five tracks – three brand new and two reworkings of older material. If I’m honest, I’m leaning towards the reworkings as my favourites on the EP mainly as they’re so different from the new material. “TNL” opens with a Helloween-esque riff and powers through with a great set of lyrics sung in a nice gruff voice. This is live show fodder with a fist-in-the-air cry of “Thundeeeerrr” in each chorus.
“Horizon” is an acoustic version, and is very “folky” – not at all what you’d expect from listening to the rest of the EP. I don’t know what the original was like, but this is a nice change of pace and a good way to finish the collection.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the new material! “Low Winter Sun” is a brilliant song in anyone’s book, for instance. Quickfire, blasting drums to start things going and a battle-metal pace throughout.
The band were kind enough to furnish me with a few older tracks, too, as I said. “Booster Shot” masquerades as a classic thrash number to begin with, then flows seamlessly into something more akin to power metal. “The Unborn Truth” is noticeably heavier, and “Shadowlight” is a seven-minute epic featuring soaring balladic guitars and vocals. Further evidence that the band, despite the amount of material they’ve released, aren’t stuck in any kind of creative rut.
You can pick up all their material on Bandcamp, where you can listen to the tracks – or you can head over to the likes of Spotify, Deezer, etc. All the links you need are below.
Thunder and Lightning are also hitting the southern part of the UK (i.e. England) in March. Support from Winter’s Edge:
- 9th – Guildford, Starr Inn
- 10th – Plymouth, White Rabbit
- 11th – Bristol, Hatchett Inn
- 12th – Birmingham, Roundhouse
- 13th – London, Fighting Cock
- 14th – Brighton, Metal Temple Festivaal
