Ooo that's sharp.
Firewind... the name along with the typeface and album cover tells you all you need to know about this band’s leanings before you even turn on your CD player. The Greek metal five piece create tunes in the style of all those old school metal bands; Iron Maiden, Dio et al, this, their fifth album, is a record that spews showmanship, a non-stop over-the-top glam-fest of melodic heaviness.
Album opener ‘Into The Fire’ begins with an acoustic guitar solo, under which an electric guitar slowly breaks in, to take you into some serious fret wankery and heavy drums. “The Premonition” is certainly fast and heavy; full of chunky riffs, duel drums, and nice little keyboard touches, however, it’s also awash with cheesy clichés; the toe curling lyrics often painfully obvious and saying nothing: “Into the fire/no need to pray for me/into the fire/my tears are black so set me free” being a prime example; the solos aren’t original, just seeming to turn out the same old chords. The problem with this approach is that many of the songs blend into one, even the slower ‘ballads’ like ‘My Loneliness’ (which reminds me of that song from “Top Gun” by Berlin, when they’re on the huge motorbike about to ride into the smoggy sunset together) end up sounding the same as the rest.
It’s hard not to feel that this band are twenty odd years too late, for the most part this is because they are more eighties sounding than bands that were around at the time, I put this down mainly to the amount of keyboard they have going on, (although this hasn’t stopped them from making it big in Japan and Europe ). Saying all that, it’s not all bad; the vocals are strong, some of the tunes, ‘Head Up High’ for example which, even with its eighties edge, makes you sit up and take notice because it’s all done without a touch of irony. Ok, so it’s not breaking boundaries but it is fun if you like head-banging.