According to the information supplied by my ears, Shattered Crosses, the standout cut from the new album by Texan trad metal stawlwarts Ignitor, might just be the best straithahead heavy metal tune released in the last ten years, if not more. A glorious, cowbell-led melange of Judas Priest, W.A.S.P. and Manowar, it simply slays anything the opposition can put in the field, before taking their children captive and forcing their womenfolk into harems of the damned.

There. Now I’ve got that off my chest, what of the rest of the album? It’s a full on major rager, by most metrics, even if it’s the front end of the album that’s really rammed with the prime A-grade beef we all crave in our metal diet. The second part of the record doesn’t hit quite so hard, but even here you don’t actually get too much to complain about in terms of songcraft; And when the band team up with metal legend Ross The Boss and his tonsil-threatening vocal sidekick Marc Lopes (also of Metal Church, another big reference point here if you’ve not heard Ignitor before) for a gloriously reverent run through Saxon classic Machine Gun you know, just know, that this whole denim n’leather malarky means as much to them as it does to you and I.

Jason McMaster shines, as ever, with yet another top drawer vocal performance. He’s not underrated, as such, but has there ever been a singer more heinously often overlooked when it comes to compiling lists of the great and the good of ‘our kind of music’? I don’t think so, and here he proves again, deep into a career that kicked off over forty years ago, just what an enduringly great talent he is. Great talents often overshadow those around them, however, and it’s a testament to the skills of the rest of Ignitor – dynamite guitar duo Stuart “Batlord” Laurence and Robert Williams and the heavy duty engine room of Billy “Chainsaw” Dansfiell (bass) and drummer Pat Doyle that this album always sounds like a ‘proper’ band rather than a great singer and some sidemen.

In 2024 it’s incredibly hard to pull off traditional heavy metal without sounding like a smug ironist or a bone headed nostalgia freak. Somehow Ignitor manage to make this music sound fresh and relevant but, also, important. That’s a great skill to have, and one which I for one fervently hope they continue to hone for as long as is humanly possible. Horns up!

Horns and Hammers is out now.