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Metal Crucifier are a five-piece Peruvian band that somehow slipped past me when they released their self-titled debut back in 2016, but I came across their follow-up, The Strike of the Beast, a few months back and decided to give it a go. As it turns out, the album ended up being one of my better discoveries as of late, for this is a band all about taking the energetic speed metal approach reminiscent of Exciter and sending it careening through the sensibilities of older Priest and Maiden to make a blazing and, er, exciting fusion of the two. Sure, that's hardly reinventing the wheel, but Metal Crucifier understand that there's no need to do that when you can just send it screaming down the highway fast enough to race past and plough through the poor fools who'd even try, and they even do it with a degree of professionalism and skill not often associated with speed metal as a whole. This is supported by the raspy vocals of Julio Brendal, who gives the entire package the right amount of that vintage '80s feel to help make this a bullet-proof blast of pounding metal anthems. Plus, they have a song called "Heavy Metal Beer," and how can you possibly go wrong with that?