Get ready to rumble! Striker has a new music video “Sucks To Suck” produced with Top Talent Wrestling Academy and featuring Harlon “The Healer” Abott and Marisa West. The video celebrates the release of the shred master’s new album “Ultrapower” produced with Josh Schroeder (Lorna Shore, Tallah, King 810), which is now available as of February 2, 2024.
“Three days of training, four broken backs, and one trash can to the face. We’re out here putting in the work in the name of HEAVY METAL!”,
adds the band.
“Ultrapower” is the seventh full-length from Striker and follows their Juno Award-winning self-released record “Play to Win” (2018) unleashed on their label Record Breaking Records.
With the band writing material since 2018, “Ultrapower” is a collection of Striker tinkering and exploring new avenues. From the album’s opening track “Circle of Evil”, a Malmsteen-esque metal banger about secret societies and the evil dealings behind closed doors to their previously released single “BEST of the BEST of the BEST” serving up some big riffs and hockey arena vocals to “Blood Magic”, which might be one of Striker’s most progressive songs, taking cues from bands like King Diamond, with its unconventional structure and punctuated guitar solos. From the band delving into their obsession for late 80s AOR and pop rock with “City Calling”, an ode to 1987, and bands like Toto and Kenny Loggins with their hook-powered albums. To fans experiencing the band’s first attempt at a synth-wave track with “Live to Fight Another Day”, this new offering sees Striker making a shredding love letter to the hard-rocking era of guilty pleasures.
The band comments on the album:
“Starting with the album cover, we wanted the artwork to represent how we feel as a band right now. We are an engine that is fired up and ready to roll. We’re made of metal and our circuits gleam! The album itself is an amalgamation of 5 years of writing and exploring music. With influences from AOR to Speed Metal, Hardcore to Hair Metal, Steely Dan to Deathcore, you name it, it made its way into the album. In the end with the help of Josh Schroeder’s guiding hand, we melted it all together to present something uniquely Striker. Lyrically we’ve stuck to the Striker tradition of writing montage songs for movies that don’t exist, songs about our spiraling serfdom, and lyrics about the evils that lurk in the shadows.”
Show Dates:
May 3 – Chicago, IL – Reggie’s – Legions of Metal Festival
Sept 4 – Atlanta, GA – Center Stage – ProgPower USA
Photo Credit: Dana Zuk
