NEWS: STRIKER Win Edmonton Music Award For Metal Recording of The Year
Coming off their recent Canadian tour dates with STEEL PANTHER, Canada’s masters of shred STRIKER took a short break from their “Summer of Shred” tour across North America to attend the 9th annual Edmonton Music Awards gala at the Winspear Centre on June 27th. The band was nominated for two awards Album of The Year and Metal Recording of The Year, which the band won for their single ‘Heart Of Lies‘ off their 2018 album “Play To Win“.
The band had this to say about their fifth consecutive award win:
“We are honoured to win the Edmonton Music Award for heavy metal for the 5th year in a row! We couldn’t have done it without the support of the music community/fans and the great organizations we have such as FACTOR, the Edmonton Arts Council, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Alberta Music, and many others. Thanks to everyone out there supporting music and keeping live music alive!”
STRIKER were nominated in the Metal Recording of The Year and Album of The Year categories alongside the following artists:
Metal Recording of the Year:
All Else Fails – A Dream of Names
Black Friday – Two Kastanzas
Fire Next Time – Party Foul
Solborn – Ad Infinitum
Striker – Heart of Lies – Winner
Album of the Year:
Joe Nolan – Cry Baby
Nuela Charles – Distant Danger – Winner
Royal Tusk – Tusk II
Scenic Route to Alaska – Tough Luck
Striker – Play to Win
STRIKER have been on tour all this summer, earlier this May with DEATH ANGEL and June with STEEL PANTHER. The band will continue their “Summer of Shred” w/ HOLY GRAIL and BEWITCHER during the months of July and August. (all dates listed below).
In additional news, STRIKER released their latest music video ‘On The Run‘ in support of their latest sixth studio album “Play To Win“ released this past October via their independent label Record Breaking Records.
Champions in blending classic heavy metal, hard rock, and 80’s hair metal, Canadian shredders STRIKER‘s sixth studio album “Play To Win” features 10 fist pounding shredtacular anthems produced by the band plus mixed and mastered by Hendrik Udd (Firewind, Powerwolf, Hammerfall, Delain). The album follows their 2017 self-titled full length that the band supported with tours across Europe and North America with Sonata Arctica, Dark Tranquility, and Warbringer along with festival appearances at 70,000 Tons of Metal, Bang Your Head Festival (Germany) and more to add to their almost 1000 shows performed in their decade-plus career. That fifth studio album also garnered them a nomination from Canada’s JUNO awards, the country’s highest music prize, along with wins at the Edmonton Music Awards and Western Canadian Awards.
Guitarist Tim Brown comments on “Play To Win“:
“Play to Win: if you want to win you have to play the game. Find the rules and break them. This is our 6th album and 3rd independent release. If we followed the rules and listened to the industry people we’d have gone absolutely nowhere. Play To Win is about listening to yourself, following your own path, and playing that 5th ace hidden in your sleeve. This album is designed to light a fire under your ass and get you moving, and we made sure to get the most modern, ear melting sounds possible. It’s all about where metal is going, not where it has been, and this is our soundtrack to success.”
Album CD order, stream and download available on www.Striker-Metal.com, iTunes, Amazon and Spotify.
“Play to Win, which might be their most balanced effort yet. It’s their most catchy, too: the likelihood you’ll be singing along with every song before they finish is very, very high.” – Metal Sucks
“expertly combined killer arena rock choruses with well-done, cleaner verses.” – Metal Injection
“Six albums in six years. That is something almost unheard of, even in the modern era of production that considerably lessens the time needed to record and mix albums. Striker always seems to provide a new album right around when I start to wonder, “Hey, I wonder what Striker is up to?”. PLAY TO WIN is the band’s 6th LP and to my ears, one of their best. Rest assured, the band has not altered their sound. This is still classic metal, mixed with modern elements that continues to leave all pretenders in a cloud of choking dust.” – Metal Rules
“You can hear influences ranging from Dokken to Metallica on Play to Win, and it’s all done with masterful songwriting, performances and production. This is a slick, aggressively-mixed record that drips with excitement and replayability… Striker have produced their best record since City of Gold, and all fans of straight-up hard rock and metal need to own this album.” – Heavy Music HQ
“Striker have knocked this one out of the park and into the stratosphere. You’d be hard-pressed to find a catchier slice of fine cheddar this year, and I’d highly recommend it.” – New Noise Mag
