Stunn

A colleague once told me he thought ‘Crank it Out!’ was one of the hardest albums to judge that he’d ever come across; he’d play it once and love it, then replay it later and hate it. I can definitely seem why. Stunn played right on the line between slick, radio-friendly rock fare and ‘real’ metal, doing both reasonably well but leaving fans of either style wanting a bit more from the album.

The album does look good. Red-white color scheme with a misspelled band name and song titles, such as ‘Tonite we Attack!’, ‘Iron Runners’, and ‘Hammer Alley’, that hint this could be a pretty heavy release. And it is a pretty heavy release. Well, kinda. Sorta. At times. Therein lies the problem. Perhaps the best way to think about this album is to consider any of those bad, post-NWOBHM albums (you know the ones, where the band members were still wearing stripey shirts but had colorful blazers and poofed-out perms) and make it a lot better but without making it a bona fide metal album.

Opener ‘Crank it Out’ is emblematic of the album overall; a good track with a decent sound, but it’s not really cranked out, more like churned out. Instead of going to eleven, this one goes to about 6, maybe 7. ‘Calling You’ tries its best to develop a nice, galloping riff, but it’s more of a trot really. ‘Running’ is the same; it has a bit of bite to it, but it’s more of a nibble. ‘Hammer Allley’ does deliver a nice, slow, heavy riff that hooks you right away, but the song doesn’t hammer, instead it kinda pounds. ‘Waddaya Think of Me Now’ speeds things up, but not too fast; it’s a Yamaha, not a Harley, and we’re wearing our helmet and sticking to the speed limit.

Side B continues to toe the line. ‘Fade Away’ is ‘the radio hit’ but it’s much too long and bland. The aforementioned ‘Iron Runners’ is a slower, grindier one, and ‘Tonite We Attack!’ does stun with a simple but nice guitar hook. But it rocks instead of attacks. The album closes with ‘Nostradamus’, which is a really nicely done, full-length instrumental, and I say that as someone who strongly dislikes instrumentals 99% of the time.

So there you have it. Is ‘Crank it Out!’ a good album? Yes! It has a good production, solid performances, nice songwriting, and plenty of hooks along the way with very few duds in the track list. But is it a heavy album? Uh, well, kinda…? If Metal is a kingdom, Stunn lived in the suburbs. And fair enough; this was a relatively common style for heavy bands in 1983. Metallica and Slayer were just rolling out their debut albums that year, so Metal still leaned on hard rock radio heroes more than it rode the lightning. I like it…. but I really wish this one went to at least 8.

This band hails from Denver and was a good exmaple of the local scene of Colorado at the 80s. All the songs are good with "Iron runners" being the metal anthem of the record. Worth obtained especially if the price is not excessive.