Scanner: The Cosmic Race (2024, Rock Of Angels Records)

Heavy/power german act Scanner are back with The Cosmic Race, their seventh studio album.

The German heavy/power band Scanner, known especially for their debut album Hypertrace (Noise Records) from 1988, has been wandering around the scene since 1986, releasing albums in dribs and drabs since their formation, maintaining a certain interest within the genre but without completely emerging. Their albums manage to maintain a fairly notable level despite the fact that they are almost remembered for their debut album, which today continues to stand as one of the pillars of German heavy/power on its own merits.

His last studio album until the release of The Cosmic Race (2024, Rock Of Angels Records) was the notable The Judgment (2015, Massacre Records), which went quite unnoticed but which more than fulfilled its purpose, being also Scanner‘s first work with the vocalist Efthimios Ioannidis, who returns to front the band in The Cosmic Race. There have been some changes in Scanner‘s line-up since The Judgment was released, with only guitarist Axel “A.J.” Julius as the only original member since 1986 and the aforementioned vocalist since his entry in 2003, with Jörn Bettentrup as bassist, Dominik Rothe on guitar and Sascha Kurpanek on drums.

In general terms, I could say that The Cosmic Race is an entertaining album, a direct continuation of The Judgment in which the band continues on its path without deviating one bit in which musical exploration is not exactly its strong suit but it delivers just what it promises. Scanner’s Law is what one expects from a Scanner album, precisely what sounds closest to his first albums like Hypertrace (1988, Noise Records) or Terminal Earth (1989, Noise Records), it is the genre with which any follower of Scanner manages to identify the German seal at first glance. The album, however, manages to go further and breaks certain patterns without going completely out of its way with darker and calmer compositions such as the somber Dance Of The Dead in which they also incorporate riffs closer to doom with catchy melodies in a pleasantly surprising way.

In The Cosmic Race we also find more elaborate compositions such as Space Battalion, an epic space epic whose duration exceeds six and a half minutes with which its members break sound barriers while making us travel aboard a ship of epic power on a journey of pure heavy metal through hyperspace. If we are looking for something more classic we can always opt for The Earth Song where its members offer the most Scanner version of the band today, combining the current production with what any fan of the band could expect from the classic Scanner.

The Cosmic Race is not an album destined to break the mold and probably will not go down in history like their debut album in 1988 did, but it is definitely a laudable effort on the part of its members to keep Scanner‘s flame alive without falling into disrepair. repetition, thus offering a fresh album that at the same time brings back memories of better times where German power metal was at the forefront of today.