IRON FIRE - To the Grave CD
Napalm Records
Years ago we just called bands like this simply Metal or even Heavy Metal but that was around thirty years ago. In that time span sub-genres were created either to redefine or denigrate. The latter seems to have happened to the bands who fall into the Power or Battle Metal category. It's been written in various mags and websites that this genre shouldn't be taken seriously or that it's one big cliche after another. And what Metal genre doesn't have some sort of cliche in it? Yeah I thought so and I also thought that IRONFIRE's last release, Blade of Triumph, was pretty good. So I'm glad to see them return with this their fifth release full of songs about monsters "The Beast From The Blackness", demons "The Demon Master", and epic battles "The Battlefield". Once again the strength of this band is with the voice of Martin Steene. The man's vocals convey power and passion which is something extremely important with this genre. The music behind Steene is pure Heavy Metal power. Heavy handed guitar riffs and solos to invoke air guitar mania, along with a impressive rhythm section which keeps everything together. The production on To the Grave is another key to the importance of this. While other genres have no problem with shiny polished overdone sound quality which makes bands sound phony. This carries an almost late 70s/early 80s feel and still epic. Plus this has the first Metal anthem of 2009, "Kill For Metal". Now how could you be critical of that?
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