Ah, Running Wild. These guys are my favorite metal band from Germany. I personally liked all of their albums, even their most mediocre albums seem like gold to me. These guys were a heavy/speed/power metal band (not pirate metal, that genre doesn't exist!). I cannot decide which album to review so I picked Black Hand Inn which is probably my favorite album by these metalhead pirates. While most other bands watered their material down in the mid 1990s, Running Wild kept the flame alive and continued to make some more kick ass albums. Now let's go sail the seas of the world of Running Wild, shall we?
Anyways, the music contained in this album kicks a lot of fucking ass! The guitar playing simply kicks ass. Lots of catchy and fast riffage coming from the guitar team. Lots of traditional metal and even some folk influence can be found all over the album. The guitar playing remains consistent all throughout the album, it never slows down. While there are good solos, they aren't quite as memorable as the non-stop riffage! The vocals of Rolf is simply awesome. His vocals are just perfect, not too high, just perfect and consistent. The drumming is quite thunderous, fast and powerful. The songs are about...pirates and history. There are some long songs (the longest is over 15 minutes) but those songs never drag on for too long because there is lots of interesting riffage to keep the songs interesting.
This album is probably the most consistent album that the band released to date. Not a single weak song will be found on this album. All of them are amazing and you can't resist headbanging to these songs! Overall, this album kicks an insane amount of ass. You need to run off now and find this album. It's a MUST own!























