SCANNER - Hypertrace

Artist:  Scanner

Album: Hypertrace

Year:  1988

Genre:  Speed Metal

If your metal diet is craving something fast and melodic, then you need to track down Scanner’s first record Hypertrace.  Scanner are an 80s speed metal unit that took all the cues from their countrymen Rage and Helloween.  Yes, I genuinely mean ALL the cues as they play exactly like those two bands.  If you slapped the name Rage on the cover, I wouldn’t doubt for one second that Peavy and crew recorded this album.  That being said, the German speed metal blueprint being developed in the early 80s wasn’t one which was over saturated with copycats like the burgeoning thrash scene which emerged a few years earlier.  Scanner doesn’t have an original bone in their musical body, but that doesn’t mean anyone should brush them off because Hypertrace is an incredible speed metal experience.

Adding together one-part New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, one-part thrash metal, and an attitude that didn’t take itself too seriously, bands were coming out of nowhere playing extremely fast heavy metal that was solidly based in the melodic roots of the genre.  Where NWOBHM bands liked to dabble in more extreme sounds and used velocity as a way to kick up the energy in only a few songs on an album, true speed metal bands loved to blast it out at 100 MPH consistently and only slowed down from time to time.   Where the early releases by Germanic thrashers Kreator, Sodom and Destruction immersed themselves in lyrical brutality that unintentionally bordered on absurd at times, Scanner and their peers injected fantasy, gods and monsters, sci-fi, sarcasm, irony and social commentary into their songs.  The futuristic lyrics on Hypertrace are a nice change from blatant rantings of death, Satan and devastation.  The music on Hyptertrace is vicious enough for even the most cynical thrasher to get into, but melodic enough for the band to lay down leads and vocals that punch you in the face with hooks.  The velocity of the rhythm section, although an ever-present factor, doesn’t overshadow the surgically-precise guitars and anthemic vocals that soar over everything.  It’s all so damn catchy.  Just listen to a song like “Terrion” and try to get that chorus out of your head.  1988 was quite a year for the genre with incredible records like Helloween’s Keeper Of The Seven Keys II, Blind Guardian’s Battalions Of Fear, Rage’s Perfect Man.  The glory era of German speed metal was short-lived, but it’s influence lives in power metal bands all over the planet.  If this is your thing, Hypertrace belongs in your collection right away!

Listen to "Terrion" here.