It takes a lot of balls to record your third album live in the studio. But balls are something WAR CLOUD has no shortage of, so such a risk is really no risk at all for them. Recorded at Earhammer Studios in California, the track listing for the aptly titled "Earhammer Sessions" is the set list of the band's most recent European tour. From Oakland, CA, but now based in Austin, TX, this is WAR CLOUD'S third album since their inception in 2014 - their last release was "State of Shock" in 2019.

The kickoff track, "Vulture City," is energetic, smartly played metal with a MOTORHEAD feel. The rawness of the mix, that echoing quality, really gives it that live, everyone-in-the-room vibe Alex's voice is appealingly phlegmy, growling and dirty and beat-up and so well suited to the material. In the solo section, you can clearly hear the difference between Alex and Nick. There's no real message in the lyrics, but the continuity of the imagery conveyed in the title is really well done - "You'll get picked apart," "Skip the cemetery/Feed me to the sky," and "My bones are buried in the mountainside." There's no real chorus either, but the repeated final couplet kind of acts as one.

The transition into the next track, "Give'r," is seamless - there's no division, not even a fadeout, just a very slight tempo and key change. The construction of that flow is brilliant. "Give'r" has an appealing, swinging riff and the drums just lift it along and air it out. The little guitar melody before the chorus sets it up very well. Later, a definite metal march gets going with the drums and the rhythm guitar riffing before we return to the initial swing. Lyrically, this has a kind of '70s stream-of-consciousness quality, and the imagery again is tangible ("Taste the ocean in the wind/Drink it like a fountain," "She slips between the frequencies/As she rises from the river").

"Chopper Wired" has the best sleazy, filthy groove, the elasticity of the guitars and drums playing off each other to thrilling effect. The solo section features Sam's to-die-for bass solo and buries drifts of guitars way way underneath before they take the fore again. The drum breakdown at the end is just as you would anticipate them doing it live, and it leads again seamlessly into the next track - never heard anything like it. This is pure personification of the chopper as a woman and vice versa, the seducer and the seduced freely alternating.

Similarly, in the exhilarating "White Lightning," you can feel the wind in your hair and see the road rushing by, it's that vivid -  and yeah it's about climbing on a bike and heading to a show. The bridge and solo section change just slightly, easing up on the tempo and introducing super low-end drums and a fantastic guitar melody. The end stops on a dime before one last feedback-laden guitar chord.

"Divide And Conquer" builds up in the intro almost unbearingly before at last letting you have its devastating swing in the verses and choruses. Joaquim's drumming has punch and muscle but also leaves plenty of space - how he makes the transition back to that swing is just effortless, it just happens exactly as it should. This is again a series of images, in this case apocalyptic ones - "They ride, blacker than starless night/Four horsemen cloaked in death, lay path of genocide," and "Abandon all hope, there is no leaving here."

The instrumental "Tomahawk" starts with snarling guitar set to a bare-bones drum riff and really takes off when the riff melody kicks in. They hit a variety of rhythmic strides here, from a sludgy churn to a crisp march "verse" to a dragged-out "chorus" that makes a vague aural spaghetti Western allusion (you'll know what I mean when you hear it), to full-out thrash that references the slower part, to a MAIDEN/METALLICA homage (with some lovely bass) before returning to the thrash again. You don't know what's going to happen next and that makes you want to listen to it. And the end reprises the beginning, as in all good instrumentals.

"Speed Demon" is lovely dirty fun, Alex spitting out the words in full badass mode. The bridge is your typical mock-threat posturing, meant more to attract than to ward away - "I'll take you on the highway of fire, honey/Show you a place you would not dare/Won't find yourself so lucky/So you better beware." Think "Aces High" with the closer, "Striker," and you'll get the idea, both tempo-wise and thematically. Machine-gun fast, it's fighter planes making barrel rolls in the sky, with a terse staccato chorus sprayed out like bullets -  "time to fight, at night we strike." The solo section echoes the verses and choruses and the end riffing plays on the rhythm of the chorus - they rarely miss a chance to self-reference and that's a great thing, as is this album.