Swedish glam-punk-metallers Sister are back, now, remarkably, twelve years and five full-length albums into their recording career.
I say remarkably because, it has to be said, they’ve managed to make a little go a very long way over that time. New album Vengeance United sees little variation in the Sister modus operandi; the guitar sound is a little heavier – though sadly not dirtier, and that’s a big difference – and indeed the heavier songs, which seem to fill the early part of the album (Side Heavy, clearly) are a little bit more vicious, nay spiteful, than we’ve come to expect from the band. Maybe some vengeance really has been ignited…
But for all that, Sister at their best – and I’m thinking of timeless spitball anthems like Bullshit & Backstabbing (from 2011’s Hated) or Carved In Stone (from 2016’s Stand Up, Forward, March!), have always been about the melody, however musclebound it might be. And so it is here on Vengeance Ignited. Tracks like Die With A Smile and Walk With Me both hit the spot like only Sister can when they are on a roll, whilst stomping closing track One Last Ride is easily one of the best things the band has ever committed to wax, being a rollicking mix of Wednesday 13, Alice Cooper and stadium-era Mötley Crüe that is an absolutely irresistible toe tapper of a tune.
As noted earlier, not much has really changed with this band, meaning that if Jamie Anderson‘s vocals were a bit too much for you last time around, they still will be on Vengeance Ignited. Similarly, if you love Phil Armfelt‘s low-slung guitar heroics then there’s a truckload of them to sink your ears into on every track. The choice is yours – just just expect to be surprised that often over the course of the album!
Vengeance Ignited releases on February 26th.
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