MEAN STREAK – Blind Faith

On their fourth album Blind Faith, Swedish Traditional Heavy Metal act Mean Streak lays down a clean, riff-heavy sound with great production values. Some of the songs have a sonically pleasing Dokken meets Helloween vibe, with strong lead and harmony vocals and shimmering guitar work that elevates Blind Faith over many albums that bring equal passion but lesser technical skill. Fans of that sort of eighties Classic Metal sound with be thrilled to find some moments of sheer brilliance on the album, like the vocal stretches and blazing solo at the end of “Come Undone”, or the creative fretwork bridges on “Fire At Will”, a swiftly moving song propelled by machine gun drumming.

Lyrically, the album is standard fare—almost all of the songs feature a central metaphor about relationships being some form of battle or combat (“Love Is A Killer”, “Caught In The Crossfire”, “Animal In Me”), but Mean Streak aren’t interested in reinventing the genre. When Peter Andersson formed the band in 2008 his goal was “to write Classic Metal straight from the heart”, so the familiar song structures and lyrical themes are to be expected, rather than condemned. Andersson has achieved his goal on Blind Faith (there’s even an Iron Maiden riff quoted on closing song “Gunnerside”), delivering a consistent product well in line with the expectations of fans seeking a straightforward dose of Classic Heavy Metal.

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