Nerve Star release new single ‘Black Ice’ and ‘The Harder The Better’

NERVE STAR release new single Black Ice (A side) / The Harder The Better (B side), out now, new album ‘White Hot’ set for release 27th February 2026. 

Black Ice – “A 100 mph cover of Aragorn’s NWOBHM classic with super fast riffs and solos.”
The Harder The Better – “Raunchy Texas style riffage, lots of wah wah and great groove from start to finish.”

NERVE STAR are a hard rock/heavy metal band which took form in 2021, playing a blend of 70’s hard rock, 80’s heavy metal, NWOBHM and some punk thrown in the mix, with unrelenting riffs, big drums, thumping bass and loud guitars. 

Throughout the year, the line up began to solidify with Joss Thorley from Manchester on Bass and Chris Billinghurst from Maidenhead on Lead Guitar and they settled on a band name ‘Nerve Star’. It wasn’t possible to rehearse together so some cool tracks were selected and sent out, with initially ten songs home demoed. 

After a couple of changes as they sought to find the ideal line up, in 2023 they brought in a great singer from the South of England, Matt Oakman, and things instantly moved into another league. With Matt on board, they searched around for a second reliable and gifted rock/metal guitarist and drummer, contacting Janne Stark, who loved all the tracks. He had done it all as both a producer and guitarist in Metal, Prog and NWOBHM bands since the 1980’s and recorded and produced his own albums and was a perfect partner for Chris on guitar, they now had their own version of the dual leads of Thin Lizzy.

With all Janne’s experience and solidity, it meant that sessions were completed in days rather than months at his studios in Sweden and everything started to take off. Janne introduced the band to Peter, a band colleague and great drummer from Karlsham in Sweden, so when Peter ‘Trumpeter’ Svensson jumped on board, the line up was complete.

In Spring 2024, with demos of the 11 covers and 2 original tracks completed, they started full recording sessions with Janne and Peter in Sweden and Joss, Chris and Matt with Ras at Raw Studios in England. This continued through 2024/25 until all 13 tracks were completed. 

For the final track on the album track that was recorded, one of their guitar heroes was asked if he would like to contribute. Tony Bourge, the heavy metal riff master from the 1970’s Welsh band ‘Budgie’ who was responsible for killer riffs on tracks such as Breadfan/Crash Course In Brain Surgery (covered by Metallica), In For The Kill (Van Halen) and many more. Tony had previously contributed on several Bandolier Kings albums with Janne and agreed to help on one of his own 80’s classic tracks ‘Richard III’, that he originally wrote and recorded with Welsh rockers ‘Tredegar’. Tony recorded all his guitar parts in Wales and sent them across. All three lead guitarists can be heard on this epic track, which is the closer on the upcoming album.

Some extra background to the nature of the songs on this album: 

“Apart from the two instrumentals (Lone Orbit & Calm, Cool & Connected) that were written by our two guitarists to showcase their talents, these are covers. Most were developed during COVID lockdown down years and we deemed them just too good to discard after things opened up again. They were all selected from obscure sources and apart from three songs (Precious Rock, Black Ice & Richard III) had never been released commercially or in most cases never got past the local band/cassette demo stage. Even Black Ice was a one off nwobhm single released by a band who then folded and disappeared quickly after.

It took quite some time to track down the original band members, who were overjoyed and amazed that anyone had remembered them or knew about their demo songs, as they had all been discarded 20-30 years earlier. In fact the band Skreem who wrote ‘Winner Takes All’. (my favourite track) was so impressed with our version, that he went looking for other material and found a dusty old tape with ‘Say It To My Face’ on it, so this opened up another outlet. Songs that would never have seen the light of day or even YouTube!

There’s many others that we haven’t tried out yet as we concentrate on new material. That is why our first new song ‘Its The Time’ has just been recorded for our second album.”

Album ‘WHITE HOT’ (HYPER04) will be released in late February 2026 on all formats: 
Vinyl LP (8 tracks), CD and Digital/Streaming Album (13 tracks) and distributed in the UK by RSK Entertainment via Proper Distribution. UK gigs and later European festival appearances will follow.

NERVE STAR:
Janne Stark – Lead & Rhythm Guitar
Chris Billinghurst – Lead & Rhythm Guitar
Joss Thorley – Bass Guitar
Matt Oakman – Vocals
Peter ‘Trumpeter’ Svensson – Drums & Percussion