Review of Iron Fire - Revenge

Iron Fire plays a visceral, immediate form of pure traditional metal with no bullshit and no pretensions. With Revenge you get wailing guitar riffs, a great singer gifted with some serious pipes and diverse songwriting. There is a pervasive crunchy guitar tone, but there’s also impressively clean playing in the leads.

Raw emotion seeps through this release like the greasy burger sitting at the bottom of the bag they hand you as you drive away from your favorite fast food joint, and it's not just a result of Martin Steene’s commanding voice. The energy and vibe is almost unparalleled, with Revenge falling somewhere between the immediacy of Saxon’s Lionheart and the playfulness of some of the more tongue-in-cheek power metal bands. It’s the Danes’ third album and the maturity shows. Songs like “Savage Prophecy” prove that the band can tackle bombastic anthems just as competently as they can more straightforward numbers like album opener “Wings of Rage.”

Syrupy sweet with plenty of meat, Revenge is built from the ground up with a strict canon of all the pure metal stalwarts in mind and covers a commendable range of material, from the more epic to anthemic and ballsy songs, all while maintaining a devotion to the almighty hook. This one took me by surprise.

Release Details

Iron Fire

Revenge

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