Scanner - The Cosmic Race

Angry Metal Guy 60

It’s an early-year surprise to be graced with a new album by Germanic power/heavy metal semi-legends Scanner. Early adopters of the Euro-power style created by Helloween, Scanner released two seminal albums at the start of their career. 1988s Hypertrace and 1990s Terminal Earth were rough and ready takes on the slick Helloween style and Scanner made their version extra interesting due to their more unhinged, raw edge. After the very good Terminal Earth, however, it took them until 1995 to drop a follow-up and by then much of the metal market had moved on to more extreme sounds or given up metal entirely and gone grunge. Scanner soldiered on until 2002 but I was too busy bathing in bloody death metal and icy blackness to notice. They reformed in 2015 for The Judgment but I was oblivious. Nearly nine years later they’re back with only founding guitarist Axel Julius remaining for seventh album, The Cosmic Race, and now I’m paying attention out of nostalgia and a fortuitous opening in the schedule of Steel. So what does 2024 Scanner offer a modern metalverse? Let’s send a probe into that black hole and find out.

Scanner blows out all the airlocks on opener “The Earth Song” with a sound going back to the earliest days of Helloween mixed with a tougher, Germanic vibe akin to Grave Digger and Iron Savior. Axel Julius goes wild with vintage power leads and metal-tastic solos as the song builds in scope and epicness. The high-energy drive and enthusiastic gallops are very old school but feel refreshing and hard to resist. Efthimios Ioannidis sounds like Kai Hanson at times and delivers his lines with ever-increasing urgency. The song is rough around the edges but also quite slick and I love how it takes me back to the embryonic days of power metal. The Native American chanting on the back half is a nice touch too. “Face the Fight” is a hard-rocking number leveraging gritty stadium rock with hooks aplenty. Ioannidis steals the show with his vocals and the over-the-top YEEEAAHs he drops like so much loose change. This one is dumb but I fookin’ love it and I’ve been walking around all week dropping mammoth YEEEAAHs while pointing at confuzzled strangers around town.

The Cosmic Race has a collection of very endearing throwback cuts that are sure to entertain. “Warriors of the Light” rocks hard and rides cheaply with enough manly bombast to get your iron levels elevated, and “Farewell to the Sun” injects more beef and brawn into the power formula, trending toward the Conan-core of Domine and the chorus feels like it requires a sword in one hand and a large tankard of ale in the other. The album’s high point arrives with the oversized “Space Battalion” with its Edguy-meets-Domine-meets-Primal Fear bathtub of metallic overkill. Here Scanner go for broke with heavier riffs and death metal-adjacent growls and the result is highly addictive and sticky like musical flypaper. I keep replaying it and it’s causing me to grow back hair on my chest. Ioannidis leans in hard here, running all over the cosmos and his exuberance is infectious. This one is an absolute blast. Sadly, there are a few selections that pull the album out of orbit. “Dance of the Dead” isn’t exactly terrible but is skippable. “A New Horizon” is an overwrought power ballad and better, but I don’t love it. Ioannidis’ vocals don’t suit the pace, sounding overblown and off-kilter. Also, the lyrics are really bad. Like English as a fourth language bad. This combined with the lesser fare makes the 47-plus minutes a bit too bouncy and uneven.

The combination of Axel Julius and Efthimios Ioannidis can be a potent one. Julius was there in the early days of Euro-power and the style is in his DNA. He has a studied way of crafting riffs that walk between genres and deliver enough grit and beef to get you moving. Ioannidis has a wild, crazy voice and can go too far at times. He can get overly shrill and sharp and reaches for notes outside his range. He’s also very heavily accented, which adds both charm and a notable cringe factor. I can see him being a total deal-breaker for some, but I find his style more entertaining than annoying. In fact, he’s a big part of the fun factor here.

The Cosmic Race is a rowdy, rollicking, and flawed trip through power metal’s past that shows there’s still life left in this olde Scanner. It’s got some highly entertaining cuts that will get heavy replays and a few clunkers, but on balance, I found this a fun blast from the past and it has me revisiting those classic platters too. I didn’t expect this much from Scanner in 2024, that’s for sure. In short: raise the 3.0 Tree!



Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: NA | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: ROAR Rock of Angels
Websites: scanner4u.de | facebook.com/scanner
Releases Worldwide: January 12th, 2024

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