Gun Barrel

Power-Dive (Limb)
by Martin Popoff

Finally, some old-timer metal that doesn’t wear a green silk robe and jewel-encrusted crown. Bloody well time somebody roughed up the idea of power metal, Gun Barrel being the spiritual descendants of Tank, then Wolfsbane, then Dirty Deeds, rocking roughshod over the Hobbit rockers on hill and dale with a nod to Aussies like Rose Tattoo and Heaven, even if these aimless aviators are plucky Germans always in need of a stein ‘n’ stone.

The recording seems willfully inept, the songs, drunken romps through blue collar booze cans, but wandering widely within that pigpen to the odd poppy ballad, the odd boogie woogie, a li’l AC/DC, a li’l Wildhearts, some NWOBHM, a bit of Metal Blade ’86 (Lizzy Borden, whatever), and a bit of a chase into the affirmative, ambitious, dirt-clogged firmament of power circa Angel Dust and Mob Rules, that is the biker end of things versus the bodice rock of the tidy power types. Damn, maybe it’s hapless, maybe deliberately hapless, but Gun Barrel have found that rough’n’roll place where personality lives. It takes bravery not to shoot the ego load like all the power metallers polluting their home label. I’m sure they hear the snickers, but the last guffaw and spirits-induced boom of a belch goes to Gun Barrel, dumb name and all.
(www.spvusa.com)