Iron Fire - To The Grave

Published December 05 2008

*=Staff's pick	The Beast From The Blackness* Kill For Metal* To The Grave The Battlefield* Cover The Sun March Of The Immortals The Kingdom* Frozen In Time Hail To Odin* Doom Riders Ghost Of Vengeance The Demon Master

Genre	Heavy Metal	Martin Steene	Vocals
Tracks	12	Kirk Backarach	Guitar
Runningtime	56 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Napalm Records	Martin Lund	Bass
Release	09 January 2009	Fritz Wagner	Drums
Country	Denmark	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	Hammerfall, Dream Evil, Rhapsody Of Fire

This is a very positive surprise! After releasing a brilliant debutalbum (Thunderstorm, 2000), Iron Fire from Denmark have kept making decent heavy metal but nothing over the top in my ears. The album Revenge (2006) was a step up again, followed by the even better Blade Of Triumph (2007), but still it was quite not there yet. It felt at the time as if that was as good as they were going to get, but I am very glad to have been proven wrong. With their new album To The Grave they deliver a smorgosbord of really catchy songs, filled with their trademarks spelled great riffs and refrains that most of the time sticks like glue.

Martin Steene, the brains behind the operation, has never tried to hide or cover that he is a big adorer of melodic, classic metal of the old days. He is not shy to admit that he burns for this type of music and will continue to play it regardless of people's opinions. A wise choice indeed, and it sounds vital and fresh and there is no apparent sign of lack of ideas or hunger for this. The tempo is overall a bit more modest than on previous albums and that is all for the better since it adds more dynamic to the music compared to before.

Highlights of the album are the songs where they incorporate more heavier guitars than before combined with catchy-as-hell choruses. Vocalist Steene has always had a great voice but here he performs at his best so far. He is powerful and characteristic and is the icing on a very delightful cake. The vocals are Iron Fire's biggest asset and the riffs have always been the other, and To The Grave contains an abundance of them to satisfy your need. The third, but not the least less important asset, is the choruses. On the album Revenge I feel that the songs sometimes die a bit when the choruses set in, but on Blade On Triumph they were back on track again and they have obviously continued to work hard in that area even on this album.

The production is very good, clear and spacy with a grand sound landscape and with more juice and pondus this time, once again courtesy of renowned producer Tommy Hansen. Generally just as before but heavier and now fine tuned to brilliance. A very good album that speaks directly to my classic metal heart and the year of 2009 starts in a really good way.

See also review of: Revenge , Blade Of Triumph , Thunderstorm

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7,5	5	7	9	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tommy