When Sydney, Australia’s LiveWire dropped debut Under Attack! four years ago, they earned a glowing write-up from the Paragon of Porifera and even landed atop our resident Thrashhound’s top ten. Sophomore outing Steel Surpasses Flesh picks up where Under Attack! left off, and on it, LiveWire galvanizes listeners with full-throttle bangers that drill deep into your brain batter and ossify into permanent residents. Discharging unrelenting hooks at voracious speeds, LiveWire earns their name through eleven riveting tracks that won’t allow you to let go of their electrifying charm. Does Steel Surpasses Flesh top the high water mark of Under Attack!? The results may shock you.
Finger-flaying leads and gluey melodies secure LiveWire’s firm hold on what made their debut so damn powerful, and their consummate collision of melodic genres excites and delights with wild-eyed enthusiasm. Speed metal’s belligerent paces run rampant across Steel Surpasses Flesh, channeling the likes of Exciter and Agent Steel as they whip arrangements into tightly-wound ragers. Unlike classic speed metal, though, LiveWire dodges raw aesthetics in favor of a crisper production that suggests retro vibes while cutting the fuzz to allow the instrumentation to gleam. Classic heavy metal also rears it head with Riot’s Thundersteeled aggression anchoring cuts like “Pathway to Ruin” and “Steel Surpasses Flesh” while “Fast Mean Killing Machine” struts with the West Coast sleaze of Mötley Crüe united with Van Halen-tinged virtuosity as LiveWire looses lyrics that blur lines between fast cars and faster women. The rest of Steel Surpasses Flesh mostly operates with reckless momentum that careens and caroms between speed, thrash, and power metal. Rather than sounding scattershot or unfocused, though, LiveWire welds these backdrops with “Surgical Precision” and elicits finely forged, genre-fused bliss.
Like Under Attack!, Steel Surpasses Flesh inundates listeners with gigawatt riffage and anthemic refrains. “Epinephrine Attack” crackles with slickety licks from the moment you hit play, shining a dazzling spotlight on guitarists Anthony Ierardo and Chris Puglia. Their theatrics scorch fretboards and sear pickguards as the master shredders go “Lightspeed Crazy” in an “All Consuming Nightmare” of turbocharged audio adrenaline. The track names give away exactly the type of high-velocity hijinks that LiveWire deals, and marshaling those forces is singer/bassist Nick Wilks. Where his vocals took a backseat to the guitars and drums on Under Attack!’s mix, Wilks races to the fore on Steel Surpasses Flesh and delivers a confident performance that spends more time in falsetto reaches (“Demon Witch”), occasionally recalling Gama Bomb’s Philly Byrne (“Lightspeed Crazy,” “Pathway to Ruin”). I can understand why this might not work for some listeners, but he’s got great pipes and uses them while proving a deft bass player to boot. Lastly, George Delinicolis’s kitwork might feel unobtrusive compared to the stringed onslaught, yet he keeps the motör running and still finds opportunities to pour gasoline on LiveWire’s fire with savvy fills and rumbling double bass thunder.
Steel Surpasses Flesh revels in rampant fun, but don’t let its carefree attitude fool you into thinking LiveWire’s tunes lack substance. The compositions remain as sharp as before, and where Under Attack! hinged its success almost entirely on the almighty riff, Steel Surpasses Flesh hones the vocal arrangements to maximize fist-pumping rapture without sacrificing six-stringed ecstasy. I also appreciate the greater emphasis on Wilks’ voice in the mix, and though the vocals intermittently sound over-processed and glossy, I notice this less with each listen. Even so, the gang vocal echoes on “Epinephrine Attack” and “Lightspeed Crazy” are as irrepressibly exquisite as the surrounding instrumentation, and the production does a fine job balancing audibility and punch. With a band this talented it would be easy to succumb to excess, but these Aussies demonstrate a keen understanding of the tightrope walk between exuberance and restraint.
I’ve gone back and forth on which LiveWire album I prefer, and although Steel Surpasses Flesh edges out Under Attack!, I’m thrilled to have both. Excluding bonus tracks, Steel Surpasses Flesh runs about twelve minutes longer, but the only opportunity to cut bloat lives on “Speed Kills,” and one minute out of forty-two hardly merits consideration. Steel Surpasses Flesh has quickly become my de facto companion when I can’t decide what to listen to, and it’s only picked up steam since I got the opportunity to write about it. If you need a jolt of energy as the year winds to a close, don’t be afraid to pick up this LiveWire and let its juice flow through you.
Rating: Great!
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: September 30th, 2026
Give in to Your Anger: