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Steröid: Chainmail Commandos (Crypt of the Wizard, 2025)
I would be lying if I chose anything other than Chainmail Commandos, the debut full-length from Sydney, Australia’s Steröid, as my staff pick this week… I have been obsessed with this record since I heard it last week. I’ve been listening to it constantly, playing it over and over more than just about any new release I can think of for the past several years. It’s one of those records I like so much I almost find it puzzling… I keep asking friends to listen to it in order to find out if I’m insane for liking it as much as I do, but aside from Danny no one has given me their impressions. I guess choosing it as my staff pick is really laying down the gambit, so hopefully I will hear from more people about what they think of this album. I’m really curious.
Basically, Steröid is the fusion of New Wave of British Heavy Metal and egg punk you never knew you wanted. If that sounds like a weird combination of sounds, that’s because it is. I found out about Steröid through the Punk This Week podcast, which is brought to you by Evan Minsker and his See Saw website. (You should definitely pay attention to See Saw, particularly if your tastes fall more toward the melodic and/or egg punk end of Sorry State’s focus.) I was washing dishes and listening to Punk This Week and Evan was talking about Steröid, describing their sound and aesthetic, and as I listened, I thought to myself, “this band sounds completely fucking bananas.” I can’t remember the last time I did this, but I turned off the podcast and immediately went over to Steröid’s Bandcamp to have a listen. My first reaction was that, yes, this band is just as weird as Evan had promised.
I should pause here to say that egg punk and NWOBHM are both subgenres I’m more or less ambivalent about. Regarding egg punk, I think it’s hilarious that some people are so hung up about it… like, there are people who seem mad egg punk exists. Who fucking cares? Personally, I think it’s cool that a new style of punk has emerged in recent years that sounds like absolutely nothing that has come before and caters primarily to young punk. I want punk to feel relevant, and it doesn’t stay relevant by rehashing the same sounds from four or five decades ago. There are great egg punk bands, mediocre ones, and bad ones. (I will admit that, as with any style generating a lot of media attention, there are a lot of lame, nondescript, or bad ones, particularly when you’re looking at releases that only come out digitally or on small-run tapes.) I think the Coneheads and D.L.I.M.C. are seminal bands, and I think Prison Affair, Gee Tee, and Snooper are all really good. That’s pretty much how I feel about NWOBHM too. I know people who base their entire lifestyle around this genre, but I’m OK with just the highlights. I think the early Diamond Head and Def Leppard records are essential, but this compilation I have called New Wave Of British Heavy Metal ‘79 Revisited (compiled by Lars Ulrich!) has more than enough good tunes to satisfy me if I get a hankerin’ for some NWOBHM.
So yeah, I never would have thought a band who combines these two styles would do it for me, but Steröid’s songs are so fucking great. The first track I heard, “Warzone in the City,” knocked me out. It starts with a cool riff and builds from there. First you get a cool little melodic lead guitar lead-in, then a brief verse before a pre-chorus that does exactly what a pre-chorus does, which is build tension and anticipation for the chorus. More and more I think the pre-chorus is the fulcrum of any great pop song, as that magical moment when the pre-chorus’s tension is released in the main chorus is the most exciting moment of the song. The chorus itself is solid and anthemic, just four words that anyone can join in singing the second time it rolls around. After another run through the verse/pre-chorus/chorus, you get a cool little bridge part where the guitars introduce an exciting new variation on the melody, then a guitar solo that offers a few moments of flash before boldly restating the song’s main melody. Then one more run through the chorus and we’re done. All killer, no filler. What a great fucking song.
They just keep coming, too. The next two tracks, “After Dawn” and “Chainmail Commandos,” are nearly as strong as “Warzone in the City,” and further into the album “Nowhere to Run” and “Desert Storm” provide another pair of high points. The entire album is very much of a piece, with the band mixing and matching instrumental and vocal hooks that are just different enough from one another to keep things interesting while maintaining a steady vibe. Chainmail Commandos is a no-skips experience for me.
As I mentioned, I’ve done a lot of pondering why Chainmail Commandos hits so hard for me when it doesn’t really map onto my usual musical preferences. Even more, though, I wondered how this thing could exist at all. If you are this good at writing songs and playing heavy metal guitar, why would you make a record that sounds like this? Why wouldn’t you just make something that sounds like a NWOBHM throwback? It would be better than 99% of the bands going for that, and you’d probably have a permanent meal ticket playing European metal festivals every summer. These songs feel like they could be huge, but not sounding like this. But really, that makes me love Steröid even more. Chainmail Commandos may not be in my stylistic wheelhouse, but “great songs played and recorded badly” is a vibe I have always had a lot of time for.
My first listens to Chainmail Commandos were delightfully free of context, but I’ve since learned a little more about the project. Apparently Steröid is a collaboration between people from the bands Gee Tee and R.M.F.C. and the person behind the dungeon synth project Quest Master. So obviously there are a lot of talented people in the room, but I still find it remarkable that those people have combined their respective strengths so effectively. Also, the record’s artwork, which perfectly articulates the music’s aesthetic, was done by Tin Savage, so clearly it’s not too far from our DIY punk world.
If you’ve checked this out and fallen for it like I have, you’ll probably want to know about a physical version. It looks like the UK label called Crypt of the Wizard released a vinyl edition of 250 that is already listed as sold out on their website. Of course, I emailed to see if there are any floating around that we could get for Sorry State, but I am doubtful. I found a pre-order for the album at Rough Trade US, so I made an order for myself. Fingers crossed it actually gets fulfilled. Maybe this record will sink without a trace and we’ll never hear about it again, but if there’s a repress at any point, you can bet I’ll load up for SSR and remind y’all about how awesome I think it is.