Running Wild
Crossing the Blades

Running Wild has a long story behind them, they begun in 1976 and the debut album was released in 1984. Since that debut they have released fifteen more albums and a long list of other releases and they have been tribute several times as well. It is a band that doesn’t really need to be introduced, and who had their best period in the late eighties and early nineties when the pirate theme was born with albums like Under Jolly Roger and Port Royal. This time they are back with the EP Crossing the Blades, a four-track release that plays for about seventeen minutes and contains a cover of the Kiss song Strutter.

The style is the same as on all Running Wild albums, pretty catchy and speedy heavy metal with coarse vocals, it gets really catchy when they do Strutter. The production is modern but not really that special and the same goes for the release as a whole. There are no surprises, nothing that they haven’t already done on the sixteen albums they have already released. So it isn’t too difficult to argue against the validity of this release, especially since it isn’t an album. If they see it as a teaser for an upcoming album, why not just release a video on youtube or something? Or they could have made an EP consisting of covers, something that makes it different but they don’t do that.

I think this release is both pointless and pretty boring. There is nothing majorly wrong with the EP or the tracks, it is just that we have heard it done so many times before and therefore it is hard to care about what you hear. It seems the most logical to think that this is just one more release to snatch some money from devoted fans and collectors, a cover and some rejected songs and you have another EP that many will buy despite the fact that they never will play it. It could of course be so that fans of Running Wild actually think that this is a quite agreeable, maybe even good release but I wouldn’t count on that. Now, I am not really a fan of Running Wild though, I did own some of their records but have sold them as I didn’t really like them and this EP is no exception, it is boring.

The best is to not bother with this release as it doesn’t offer anything you want and it is pretty boring. Hardcore fans and collectors of the bands are the only ones who should think about this, more casual fans will probably feel better if they didn’t buy this one. Hopefully they make something more worthwhile next time because the sounds of blades crossing is way better than the sound of this album.

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