Original Manowar guitarist Ross The Boss was also a Dictator on Shakin’ Street, so he’s been around a bunch of cool bands. Love the guy, and as a guitarist, man, he’s just got this carnal electric attack that doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but works because of his solid grounding in meat and potatoes rock ‘n’ roll. But yeah, the ongoing existence of Manowar, and his acrimonious relationship with Joey DeMaio has always stuck in his New York craw. So, amusingly, here he is with a new album stickered “The best ‘Manowar’ album since Kings Of Metal.” And that’s what Ross is after in every facet, including cover art, lyrics, cannon-like drums, buzzing bass, midrange-mad production on the guitars, and epic crunching traditional metal of that weirdly thumping power metal sort. In fact, this project came from Ross playing with a Manowar tribute band over in Europe, and that’s exactly who is now “Ross The Boss” (I actually like that name, and am glad it’s not The Ross The Boss Band or any crap like that). Most addictive track is the out of character “glam” rocker ‘May The Gods Be With You’ plus it’s cool that Ross’ ex-Brain Surgeon cohorts Al Bouchard (BOC drummer) and Deb Frost (now ex-of Albert!) co-write two tracks. Final impressive bolt is vocalist Patrick Fuchs… now, reviews flooding in say he’s no good, and I was leaning that way at first, but now dig his weird, human, slightly imprecise dimension - y’know, I’m just kinda glad there’s this sense of very European imperfection to this thing – think Overdrive or Highway Chile or even Blaze for smokey sonorousness.