Crucified Barbara – The Midnight Chase (2012)

Delivering an excellent hard rocking release, today we have Sweden’s Crucified Barbara and their third full-length release “The Midnight Chase”. Featuring eleven songs of Hard Rock with some Metal elements, this release is very well written and extremely catchy. The band’s attitude since the opener “The Crucifier” is very determinate and quite effective in delivering powerful Thrashy riffs with more traditional drum structures.

Mia Coldheart’s vocals are raspy enough to have that early Motorhead vibe, giving the band’s sound that old-school vibe that other bands would kill for. The melodic aspect of the band’s music is also quite excellent, on tracks like “Shut Your Mouth”, and “Into the Fire” there are very cool melodic passages that add diversity to the band’s sound. The tempo changes like on “Rules and Bones” add depth to the band’s musical arsenal, but ultimately the killer guitars and catchy lyrics are what make the songs an excellent listening experience.

The guitar solos on “If I Hide” are pretty solid, and while not used enough (in our opinion) they do add speed to the songs they are used in. Mia Coldheart and Klara Force do a great job in keeping the riffs flowing and the overall atmosphere of the release is very heavy and distorted, just like any good Rock/Metal album should be. Interestingly enough, our favorite track on this release is the ballad “Count Me In”. In this track we see a completely different side of the band and great vocal melodies provided by Mia and Klara.

The bottom line is that “The Midnight Chase” is an excellent hard-rocking release that will please any fan of Metal and Hard Rock music. Crucified Barbara has amazing skills to write and execute catchy and aggressive tunes with a high dose of attitude, and we hope their future releases keep getting better and better. If you are looking for a good album to accompany in your drive to work and arrive all amped up, this is the album you should be purchasing.

Release: July 31th, 2012

Genre: Hard Rock/ Heavy Metal

Country: Sweden