STEEL ASSASSIN: 'WWII: Metal Of Honor' Artwork Unveiled

Massachusetts metallers STEEL ASSASSIN have unveiled the cover artwork of their long-awaited sophomore album, "WWII: Metal Of Honor", tentatively due this spring

Guitarist Kevin Curran put a lot of effort into researching the concept for the new CD. He explains, "I did quite a bit of reading, and did the research on selected subjects. I've always had a strong interest in World War II, and have a good collection of books on the subject. Some of the books I read were 'Guadalcanal Diary' by Richard Tregaskis and 'Four Stars of Hell' by Laurence Critchell, to name a couple."

He adds, "The angle is that we attempted to tell a few different stories and cover some of the key theaters of operation. It is so vast a subject that we couldn't possibly cover all of it. For example, we had a song called 'Exodus' about the Bataan death march, but decided that we would cover the Pacific Theater differently, with 'Guadalcanal'. We could have done three records on the subject."

When asked what the main differences are between STEEL ASSASSIN's last album, "War Of The Eight Saints", and "WWII: Metal Of Honor", guitarist Mike Mooney says, "I guess musically there is not much of a change of direction in comparison to say 'War Of The Eight Saints', or is there? Well, from our perspective, there has never been any conscious shift in direction or sound, but I think if you look objectively from our earliest recordings, all the way to 'Saints' and now to 'Metal Of Honor', there definitely is a distinct evolution of sound. Personally, I think that with this record there is a new dynamic at work, I happen to think it's our most modern sounding body of work to date, yet it retains a gritty, pale, gun-metal sound that is indicative of the era we are trying to capture."

In addition to the eight brand new original songs on "WWII: Metal Of Honor", the album will include a cover version of the RUSH classic "Red Sector A". Mooney states, "I actually made a demo of the song about five years ago basically for my own purposes. I've always loved the way Geddy [Lee] sings that song, there's a hopelessness and longing in his voice that is brilliant, but there's also a quality of urgency that I thought would translate well to metal, so I basically changed up the tempos and really kept everything else the same. I call RUSH my 'desert island' band, meaning if I were ever stranded on desert island and could only listen to one artist, it would be RUSH. Kevin and I are both huge fans all the way back to their earliest days. Their writing in a lot of ways is very metal, but they are so much more diverse than just that. 'Red Sector A' also ties in rather neatly with the military concept of our record. We were at my house combing through some demos for the new record, when I came across my old version of it, and all at once it struck me, this would be an awesome addition to the World War II theme. I began the campaign right then to have this song on the album, Kevin instantly agreed and the rest would follow. Lyrically and musically it's a perfect complement to this record and the whole band is really excited about it."

STEEL ASSASSIN is:

John Falzone - Vocals
Kevin Curran - Guitar
Mike Mooney - Guitar
Phil Grasso - Bass
Greg Michalowski - Drums