STEAL THE CITY – Road to Nowhere

Hailing from Sheffield and packing plenty of sonic punch, the quartet known as Steal the City delivers hook-laden songs that fall somewhere between arena-sized hard rock and modern metal with strong melodies to it. Full of energy and as immediately accessible and catchy as they come, the compositions generally deliver some enjoyable and uplifting moments, and there are several parts that do a great job tugging at the heartstrings with “Tomorrow’s Another Day,” “Knight the Unholy,” “If You Could See Me Now,” and the mellow title cut being the most prominent examples of this. There is crunch and finesse to the majority of these eleven tracks not to mention character and diversity, but a few of them, namely “Stand Together,” “Adrenaline,” and “Up in Smoke” suffer from a lack of staying power and depth, and they strike these ears as being somewhat predictable and short on genuine excitement and thrills. Despite it not being the most robust and cohesive of offerings in terms of quality, the positives outweigh the negatives by far, and there is a lot to cherish and admire about this explosive and dynamic output. You simply cannot go wrong with such spirited and hard-hitting tunes as “Drag Me to Hell,” “In Ruins,” and “Timebomb,” and those three in particular are bound to go down a storm in a live setting. The future is looking very bright for these talented chaps, so keep an eye out for them and give this record of theirs a handful of streams.