Album/EP

Nita Strauss - The Call of the Void (Album Review)

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Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Jul 10, 2023

7 min read

Nita Strauss - The Call of the Void
Released: July 7, 2023

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Since breaking out as a member of cover band The Iron Maidens, Nita Strauss has risen to prominence and accolades as one of the world’s premier guitarists. Noted for being Alice Cooper’s lead touring guitarist, and more recently backing Demi Lovato dive into hard rock, Strauss has played on plenty of big stages and rocked them all. For her second solo album, Nita has reached out to a range of vocalists that helped her realise an album that moves between melodic death metal and arena hard rock anthems. It’s an interesting mix to be sure.

What I hadn’t realised about Strauss from her resume was just how damn hard she could go. Fans of melodic death metal will dive straight into the instrumental ‘Summer Storm’, which builds nicely from a melodic gloom into a shredding riff backed by double kick. It segues into the triumphant ‘The Wolf You Feed’, with Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy) joining in the fun. White-Gluz gets to show off her full range from opening blergh to her soaring cleans on the chorus. Her harmonies sound absolutely killer. There’s plenty of bark too and truth be told it’s not far from her output with Arch Enemy, with Strauss laying down her melodic leads around the Canadian powerhouse. The second death metal duo of ‘Momentum’ and Anders Fridén (In Flames) fronted ‘The Golden Trail’ means there’s more than just a couple of really heavy tunes. Fridén brings his own vibe, with Strauss using keys to really go for the horror movie aesthetic. He brings a metalcore vibe to the verses before really opening up his voice on the chorus in a way that doesn’t happen often in his day job. It’s a cool change that suits Strauss' album nicely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYQ02OP5h00

Strauss is far from a one or two-trick pony. Check out the groove on ‘Digital Bullets’ as Chris Motionless (Motionless in White) waxes lyrical about keyboard warriors online. There’s cyber synths too but the star is Strauss’ short tapping solo. It’s followed by Lzzy Hale (Halestorm) on the empowering anthem ‘Through the Noise’, which sounds like two rock titans throwing down. Both these are catchy tracks. In some ways it is reminiscent of Slash’s first album in that whilst the guitar playing and riffs are central the guest vocals each leave their own imprint, making for a neat collection of songs that show different types of riffs and solos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZWUrI8yaIg

Certainly the touring Strauss has done has prepared her to share the stage with some big personalities. Other than the aforementioned Hale, Disturbed's David Drainman steps into the post-nu metal groove of ‘Dead Inside’ and totally owns it. Strauss’ rhythm guitar grooves alongside him before busting out a solo that segues into a classic Disturbed-style breakdown. Totally got stuck in my head for days. The breakdowns continue with Lilith Czar on ‘Monster’ with Strauss really getting some squeaks and squeals out of her six strings among drum loops and samples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXylY7ACINI

The album really comes alive with some massive festival-ready anthems. ‘Victorious’ is a slab of awesome power metal with Dorothy Martin on lead vocals. It’s a huge tune with an instantly singable chorus. More surprising is that she drags Alice Cooper out of his garage rock safe house and into a similar power metal epic. Ol’ black eyes sounds invigorated among doom riffs and battle ready backing vocals, leading chants on ‘Winner Takes All’. It’s an album highlight and arguably one of the few songs where the vocalist bends to Strauss’ style rather than the other way around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oaeTi9poBU

Guitar aficionados are well catered for though, with a series of instrumentals between feature vocalists. There’s the video game hammering of ‘Consume the Fire’ and the post-apocalyptic melody of ‘Scorched’. The one you’ll come for though is the guitar duet with metal legend Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth). There’s plenty of melody and thrashing twists and turns as the duo rip out riffs and trade solos for five minutes. It doesn’t disappoint, if anything I could listen to these two go for another five minutes.

Guitarist solo albums can be a specific niche in the metal and rock market but Nita Strauss brings in a mix of friends from across genres for an album of almost wall-to-wall anthems. Guitar buffs will dig the instrumental tracks but there are some massive vocal hooks from the likes of Hale, Drainman, White-Gluz, Fridén and Cooper. In the aggregated playlist era, there are a bunch of tracks that will get exposure through different mixes. Ideally, I would love her third album to be more of a focused collaboration with one vocalist who can help Strauss continue to explore her guitar playing across the rock-sphere. As an all-star rock off, The Call of the Void hits enough highs to be worth repeat listens.