WALRUS is a Heavy/Power Metal band from Aigle, Vaud, Switzerland. "Unstoppable Force" is the band's first EP, released independently on December 3, 2021.

Well, the production is good, especially for an independent release. Fred Nic's singing is also very good, showing hints of Ronnie James Dio and, of course, Bruce Dickinson. Aside from these two things however, I am not a fan of this release whatsoever.

My biggest gripe is that the riffs are way too simplistic, to the point of being a blatant IRON MAIDEN rip-off. Take the title track, for instance. The opening riff reminds me simultaneously of nearly every single IRON MAIDEN riff ever written AND one of the first riffs I wrote - and I have since gotten a lot better at writing riffs. Another good example is in the chorus of "Eternal Silence," which has the signature IRON MAIDEN chord progression. Arguably, these guys aren't even trying to hide the fact that they have stolen a page or two from the MAIDEN playbook.

Another big gripe for me is that the solos are rife with clichés (not that everything else on this EP isn't, but this is perhaps the most egregious example). Whoever does the solos clearly stopped learning new techniques after discovering Kirk Hammett, as they share a lot of the same licks. The only thing that separates these two, however, is that Kirk Hammett gets away with playing the same licks over and over again because he can play them so ridiculously fast and accurately (on record at least) that you're blown away by the sheer speed.

Whoever is the lead guitarist here cannot play fast at all. Now thankfully, he doesn't try to play fast and make a fool of himself, but the whole point of Power Metal is that you need to play fast solos in order to match the pace of the riffs. Also, he plays with hardly any vibrato, which makes it even more apparent that his solo techniques need some more work because if you're going to hold onto a note for a long stretch of time, you need to do something else to make it more interesting. That's why David Gilmour can get away with playing slowly, because his vibrato is so excellent.

Overall, this was not very good in my humble opinion. This band is like a dollar store version of IRON MAIDEN, and even though I'm not a big fan of IRON MAIDEN, I'd much rather listen to them than a silly knock off. WALRUS, you guys have some work to do for your future releases.