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I had heard good things about this one, and was pleased to pick it up secondhand. I have heard rumblings about a full-length release from this band sometime in the future, and judging from this EP that could be a very good thing.

Nightcrawler, as the name might imply, are a band with a yen for Judas Priest-inspired metal with a very 80s sound. There are nicely crunchy riffs and some quite good lead playing. The songs are mostly midpaced to sorta-fast, with some slow parts mixed in for variety. There is a glossy, dry sound to the guitar tone that reminds me of 80s hard-rock. And the vocals of singer Jim Hamar remind me of hard rock even more. He has a rough-edged, gritty voice with a lot of power. He sounds good, if not extremely metal.

Overall this EP is pretty cool, especially for a self-produced effort. It has excellent cover art, the production is good, and the musicianship is of a high quality throughout. This is a little more rock than metal, but it’s easy to see that these guys could produce some good music with a little more work. All the songs here are good, just not great. I have no real idea if this band is still around (I could not find a website despite several searches, and the address in their booklet is 5 years out of date.) But I’ll look out for a new album, as these guys show a lot of promise.