adg211288
Giants of Canaan is the fifth full-length album by US heavy/power metal act Attacker. It was released in 2013. Attacker has never been the most productive of bands even when taking into account that they were not active from 1989 – 2001, and Giants of Canaan marks the end of quite a lengthy gap between studio albums, their last being The Unknown in 2006. The length of time between releases has also seen the line-up change a bit, including the introduction a new lead vocalist, Bobby Lucas (Morbid Sin, Overlorde).
The music on Giants of Canaan is a mix of traditional heavy metal and US power metal. Attacker is most known I believe to be considered a USPM act but the music on Giants of Canaan strikes me as being mainly orientated around traditional heavy metal, with a strong old school flavour which considering Attacker’s early eighties origins is hardly surprising. While USPM is indeed closer in sound to the traditional metal root than its European counterpart there aren’t that many instances across the album where USPM becomes distinctive enough that at the album’s conclusion I could feel confident to say that Giants of Canaan is a USPM album. Rather it’s a heavy metal album with USPM elements.
Of course what it is isn’t really important at the end of the day, and Attacker has a pretty solid sound no matter what genre you want to consider the album to be. That said it does come across as somewhat unremarkable as a whole. The songs are solid in general, but while there are a few highlight contenders such as the title track, Trapped in Black, The Hammer and Sands of Time there’s nothing here that really screams ‘this is top tier work here!’ at me. The rest of the songs are enjoyable enough to listen to but the 51:05 minute album seems to drag a bit around the midway point, and the first impressions are better than the lasting ones. Despite that there is nothing below competent to be found here, and so a good album tier rating is deserved.
74/100
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/attacker-giants-of-canaan-t2897.html))