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IMPELLITTERI “War Machine”
IMPELLITTERI “War Machine”
By Iron Sheik
Chris Impellitteri has been making music for 35 plus years. Most of it has been with Rob Rock on vocals as well as main lyricist along with James Pulli on bass. Whoever has filled the drum duties on past albums has done so excellently, and helped define the IMPELLITTERI sound. Today we have joining James Pulli on bass is Paul Bostaph on drums. You may know him from a band called SLAYER. Fast, heavy, technical and shredding defines the 2024 version of IMPELLITTERI. “War Machine” is their 12th full length album with assorted EPs, live albums, and compilations along the way, and thirty-seven years ago there was a discovery that was much welcomed.
IMPELLITTERI's new album sounds like the IMPELLITTERI of “Screaming Symphony” era, circa 1996 albeit somewhat heavier. Lyrics on this album seem to be less on heavenly affairs and more on what is going on with us in the world today. Rob Rock sounds as good today as he did on that fateful day trip in 1997 when I discovered IMPELLITTERI on one of my CD shopping trips into a suburban Chicago heavy metal CD store.
I remember by 1997 being disillusioned by the state of heavy metal or more precisely the lack thereof. Grunge had forced heavy metal into the underground with some bands throwing in the towel or trying their best to stay relevant by adopting the grunge sound. Think along the lines of OZZY's “Ozzmosis” album or even worse the shelved and finally released two years after the reunion started, “Carnival Of Souls” by KISS..
I remember working third shift in a gas station in 1997, and a high school friend would bring me mix tapes of bands I had never heard of interspersed with the occasional band I knew of that had put new music out. At that point I rediscovered some bands while learning of many new bands, and through his kindness he let me know of this store in the burbs that only sold heavy metal CDs, Impulse. I was off to the races learning of not only new active bands but as well as bands of the 80s that were still active when I finally drove to the store. This is when I bought the most expensive CD I had bought to date, “Ghetto Machine” by LOUDNESS at $50.(Impulse was a great record store, but very overpriced, which lead to their downfall—Dr. M) Somewhere in this timeframe of my early road trips into the store to comb the racks of CDs I learned of IMPELLITTERI. I bought “Screaming Symphony”, an aptly titled album. Enough of my travels of a lifetime ago. Let's get into 2024 and the new IMPELLITTERI album “War Machine”!
“War Machine” opens the album, and from the first notes to the last notes of “Just Another Day” it never lets up. An unrelenting tour-de-force of heavy metal from IMPELLITTERI across eleven tracks in 2024 is what we get! Paul Bostaph sure kicks things up a notch and plays well with James holding an unrelenting bottom end down. There is a moment Chris channels Ronnie James Dio, but I will leave that a surprise for you, future listener.
War, rocking out, spreading wings and flying, playing for the audience, UFOs, frustration, and salvation are some of the themes sung about on “War Machine”. Because only Chris and Rob consider themselves Christians, Rob says the fact that James and Paul are not, they don't consider IMPELLITTERI a Christian band. It does not matter if they are or not, or if their lyrics take on a more positive tone from time to time IMPELLITTERI kicks ass! This is proven across 43 minutes of intense speed and shredding. What we got in the 1996 “Screaming Symphony” is almost exactly what we are getting in 2024. Consistency! I miss those road trips. Speed and shred with excellent vocals but less a reliance on heavenly matters, “War Machine” is eleven battle hymns of an unrelenting force that in only a way IMPELLITTERI could let loose.
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