Players like Chris Impellitteri don’t come out every day, the Los Angeles guitarist has been generously offering albums to fans of the classic sound with some more power references for several decades now. Since his impressive EP back in 1987 I can’t say he has a mediocre, let alone poor, body of work to show for it.
So here we are in 2024 and his twelfth please album, which comes six years removed from “The Nature Of The Beast”. His works may not have huge differences between them, for a while he came closer to a more modern sound but that’s about it, but the distance between releases obviously gives Chris the necessary breathing space so that he doesn’t sound… one of the same as my favourite Pell for example.
Of course, his longtime bandmate is the awesome and formidable Rob Rock and here we meet the drum machine that goes by the name of Paul Bostaph! What can we say now. The album is so tuned up that it could be a benchmark for metronomes!
“War Machine” has it all. From tracks in… red like the opening title track or “Wrathchild” for example. On the other hand there are also more melodic and commercial moments like “Out Of My Kind”. I repeat that Chris here does not reinvent the wheel. He offers his listener exactly what he wants to hear. Guitar driven metal with crazy shredding and a general unraveling without the compositions lagging behind. In a few words the tracks have a meaning of existence and are not just the wrapping for the solo moment.
“War Machine” kicks ass. At 43 minutes it is to the point and without exaggeration. American metal as we like it. While for me all of his work is excellent, I will say that this album is a click above its predecessor. We invest fearlessly.
