NITA STRAUSS – Controlled Chaos

8/10

NITA STRAUSS - Controlled Chaos - 8/10

8/10

Summary

Sumerian Records
Release date: November 16, 2018

Sending

User Review

0/10 (0 votes)

There is a great deal of emotion present on Controlled Chaos, the debut solo album from Iron Maidens shredder Nita Strauss, a welcome diversion from the majority of guitar-driven instrumental Metal, where quite often technical skill and wizardry takes precedence over more rounded songcraft. Nita has technical chops to rival just about anyone (“Marianas Trench”, yow) but the eleven songs on Controlled Chaos have a breadth and variety to them that pulls the listener into each song as a song and not just one extensive, interminable noodle-fest.

Also different from many Metal instrumental albums is that it appears to be a more collaborative album. Many of the songs come across as a dialogue between Nita’s guitar and the keyboards of her Femme Fatale bandmate Katt Scarlett, such as on the quiet number “Hope Grows”, or, more often, between Nita and Josh Villalta’s usually lightning fast drumming. “The Quest” uses that interplay between Nita and Josh to great martial effect, but on the ballad “Here With You” the drumming actually sounds intimate. This ability to create mood and tell a story through the playing alone is something that Nita has clearly honed for this album; the aforementioned “The Quest” conjures images of a fantasy hero (or heroine, go Nita) trudging and striving through dangerous tasks, battling monsters all the way. The guitar actually prowls through sections of “Lion Among The Wolves”. Nita brings in some strings on the album’s closer, a cover of the Queen classic “The Show Must Go On”. One certainly hopes.

TUNE INTO METALEXPRESSRADIO.COM at NOON & MIDNIGHT (EST) / 6:00 & 18:00 (CET) TO HEAR THE BEST TRACKS FROM THIS UPCOMING RELEASE!!!

Nita Strauss

Author

Daniel Waters

Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.
View all posts