Sometimes, no matter how much you think you should like a band, for some inexplicable reason they just don’t click for you. First impressions can only be made once, second chances happen rarely, and third chances almost never occur, so once your mind is made up it will usually remain made up. This, of course, results in most bands who don’t make it past those first couple of ill-fated encounters finding themselves forever gathering dust inside that broken filing cabinet in the back of your mind, unceremoniously shoved away under N for ‘Nope’.

Or more likely another letter if your filing system isn’t as family friendly as my own.

Every now and again though, one of those bands manage to escape their gloomy confines and earn a reprieve. It could be anything that triggers this impromptu act of clemency; a video, a song, an interview, a live performance. But whatever it is, something suddenly hits the target and with nary a warning, you suddenly find yourself wondering why on earth you never took to them in the first place.

For me, that band is Huntress. A band I should have loved from the start, everything about them, both visually and musically, has been virtually tailor-made to meet my tastes. Occult imagery, boobs, fast and thrashy riffs, boobs, Rob Zombie style music videos, a ballsy and talented female vocalist and boobs. Yet somehow, until earlier this year when I saw them in the flesh (the band, not the boobs), I just didn’t Get It.

But Get It I eventually did, and having been won over by them in the live arena, that left the ball firmly in their court.

So, with the arrival of their latest album, Static (Napalm), Huntress become the latest band to have not only finally clawed their way into my good graces, but look to remain firmly cemented there for the foreseeable future. ‘Sorrow’ opens proceedings with a frantic blast and is followed by the Megadeth style intro of ‘Flesh’, a slower song with a killer chorus. ‘Brian’ is next, a track written about an eccentric old man who became friends with singer Jill Janus. ‘I Want to Wanna Wake Up’ is about Janus’s struggle with various mental illnesses, and slow burner ‘Mania’ treads the same lyrical path, crawling along with a bitter melancholy. Things taper off a little with ‘Four Blood Moons’, but only very slightly, and are set straight back on course afterwards with the double hitter of title track ‘Static’ and clear highlight of the album, ‘Harsh Times on Planet Stoked’. ‘Noble Savage’ chugs along effectively backed by a nice vocal performance by Janus, and ‘Fire in My Heart’ is a fine closer.

Only time will tell whether my opinion of their previous two albums will change, but if you were ever undecided about Huntress then I would urge you to give them another chance with Static. It might not hit you straight away (a couple of tracks take four or five spins to really come to life) but with some time and effort, the rewards are most definitely there to be had.

8.0/10

GARY ALCOCK