ALBUM REVIEW: STATEMENT Prove They Are A “Force Of Life”

STATEMENT are a five piece from Stockholm Denmark: Jannick Brochdorf vocals, Niels Alex Larsen lead guitar, Lars Ulrik Le Fevre guitar, Martin Poulsen bass, and Daniel Nielsen drums. Formed in 2011 and unlike many Nordic bands who are either dark extreme, or Symphonic or have a Viking look these guys play out and out heavy metal with a thrash feel at times but with loads of attitude and no keyboards or costumes.

Force of life is their third album and was produced by Soren Anderson who has worked with Tyger’s of Pan Tang/Glen Hughes among others and is a pretty good axeman himself having played with Marco Mendoza,

The album kicks off with The Hero Inside – a classic rock song reminiscent of the Scorpions with nice heavy riffs and a good solid drum sound.

A more faster track next: Darkness In Their Eyes – great melodic guitar with a sing along chorus and a middle-eight scorching guitar solo along with some maidenesque multi guitar work.

Thunderstorm has an intro with a prog feel to it on the next track Higher ground. A real eighties vibe to this one with again nice melodies, but definitely enough heavy guitar on there to please.

Strange one next in I Wonder Why which starts off as a deep bass double pedalling thrash/Pantera sound with an awesome guitar intro, but unfortunately soon turns into a poppy commercial ballad. A confusing track that doesn’t seem to be able to make its mind up what it wants to be; probably the weakest track for me.

A Black Sabbath touch to The Hurt: deep bass sound and powerful vocals from Jannick along with the impressive guitar work and a nice head banging beat throughout make this one of the stand-out tracks on the album: half way through you get an Iron Maiden guitar feel, but they soon go back to the dark sabs sound.

The title track Force of Life is a fast-melodic number with a real hand clapping chorus that has thrash guitar breaks, some awesome hard and heavy power metal solos, deep thumping bass and hard and heavy double pedalling along with the impressive chops again from Mr Brochkdorf: something for everyone on this.

Most people have heard the Mamas and Papas classic California Dreamin’ as have this band and being one of their favourite songs decided to cover it, but not any old cover: an in your face balls out Thrash Metal cover, think Metallica, Anthrax etc and you’re on the right track, this is brilliant, staying true to the original as much as a thrash tune can. A wonderful homage.

On Rock Your Heart Out Jannick shows you he can growl just as good as any of them another mix of melodic metal and thrash with another great guitar solo and infectious chorus.

Feeling Scared, A deep bass and a pounding drum sound intro; this is a real Metallica influenced number with Jannick at times even sounding like Hetfield but the band still add their own touch to it, one of my favourite tracks on the album, lovers of thrash will embrace this.

Ending the album with In This Moment, another eighties style ballad with long guitar solo and feel good lyrics, I would have preferred a heavier number to close but that’s just my opinion.

Review by Dave Martin

Originally published on Jace Media