GUS G. – Steel Burner

vote
6.5

• Bands:
  GUS G.
• Duration: 00:38:45
• Available from: 04/24/2026

We've always liked Gus G., we admit it. Beyond his undoubted charisma and skill on the instrument, we think that a good part of this sympathy derives from the fact that, over the years, the Greek guitarist has managed to keep his two artistic faces very distinct: traditionalist, at the service of the song and far from excesses of protagonism, in Firewind or Dream Evil; more brazen, curious and experimental, however, in the works published under his own name.
A choice which, if on the one hand transforms solo records into a sort of artistic outlet, on the other hand always ends up generating a certain expectation and a natural curiosity towards the directions he could take.
Records like “I'm The Fire”, “Fearless” and “Brand New Revolution” have always been, in fact, at a certain distance from the sound of Gus G., musician of a heavy metal band, offering songs that are often more varied and modern, often characterized by intuitions that go beyond the hard'n'heavy tracks we usually associate with him. A formula which, over time, has also guaranteed him generally more than positive reviews on these pages.

However, with “Steel Burner” we arrive at the sixth chapter of his solo career and, perhaps for the first time, we find ourselves faced with a work less inclined to surprise us. Not that the album is bad, let's be clear: it simply appears more controlled, less eager to broaden its boundaries.
Characterized, like the works mentioned previously, by the usual alternation between songs entrusted to different guest singers and entirely instrumental pieces, the album curiously shows a lesser propensity for variety in its singing episodes, which often end up moving within rather predictable coordinates.
For example, where “I Am The Fire” played with its title track on a more modern and contaminated metal, or where in “Fearless” the raucous cover of Dire Straits' “Money For Nothing” caught the attention, here we don't find a similar moment of escape, on the contrary, everything seems much more canonical.
Of the five songs embellished with guests, three are similar in style and approach to what Firewind proposed, with the voices of Ronnie Romero (Lords of Black) and Dino Jelusick (Animal Drive, Whom Gods Destroy) carrying out their task perfectly, but also further strengthening the link with the most classic power/heavy metal. Things change little with “Nothing Can Break Me”, which also thanks to the presence of Doro Pesch remains the most traditional we can imagine, and the only real emotional surge comes with “Dancing With Death”, an excellent song which once again sees Matt Barlow (Iced Earth) in the role of the great showman.

On the instrumental pieces we obviously do more than well, but the spirit of adventure that was perceived on the bravest of his works, “Quantum Leap”, seems to have fallen asleep a bit here too.
A certain discontinuity in the quality of the songwriting also contributes to weighing on the final judgment: if episodes like “Dancing With Death” still manage to leave their mark, several other songs instead flow without particular emotional or melodic peaks, relying above all on the professionalism of the performers and the solidity of the execution. In short, that handful of truly memorable songs that made the difference in other episodes of Gus G.'s discography are missing.
The problem, if we want, is not so much the quality of the material, which remains high, but its placement: in previous solo works Gus G. had often exploited this artistic parenthesis to distance himself at least in part from the coordinates of Firewind, collaborating with singers coming from different contexts and experimenting with solutions that would hardly have found space in the parent band. On “Steel Burner”, however, this desire seems attenuated and most of the songs move within rather traditional heavy and hard rock coordinates.
The songs work, the guests do their duty and Gus' guitar remains a guarantee: what is missing is, if anything, that desire to surprise which, in our opinion, had made the previous solo works something different from a simple collection of good heavy metal.
“Steel Burner” is a successful album, but it is also the album that least of all shows us a Gus G. different from the one we already know. And perhaps, for a project born precisely to explore alternative paths, this is a shame.