Artist: Priester
Country: Finland
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Digital EP
Year: 2026
Although many Hard Rock enthusiasts will associate the title ‘Soldier Of Fortune’ with the Deep Purple ballad and closing track of their 1974 album ‘Stormbringer’, it is also the title of the second EP by Finnish Heavy/Speed/Thrash Metal band Priester. The debut EP, ‘Let The Blood Run Red’, which was released at the end of 2024, was one of my favorite demos/EPs of that year, so I was eagerly looking forward to new work from this power trio.
With roughly the same playing time as ‘Let The Blood Run Red’, we get just under fifteen minutes of unadulterated 80s metal in the truest sense of the word. With almost equal parts of Heavy Metal, Speed Metal and Thrash Metal, this will please everyone who has a knack for what happened in those glory years of metal when the NWOBHM era came to an end and the music rapidly became more extreme. Priester can be placed exactly on that Priester can be placed precisely at that pivotal point in the musical history of Heavy Metal. Comparisons with bands such as Tokyo Blade, Witchfynde, and Jaguar are just as appropriate as with Slayer’s first two albums, and influences from American powerhouse metal bands such as Abattoir, Attacker and Omen (especially vocally) are hard to miss.
With these four new songs, Priester demonstrates that titanic power can be derived from simplicity and recognition. Although the songs feature solid guitar work and there is clearly no lack of craftsmanship, Priester is not a band of progressive antics or musical megalomania. Instead, they stand firmly in the NWOBHM blue collar tradition, where rough and powerful riffs go hand in hand with an equally unpolished production. That’s how I like it!
