Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release date: August 9, 2024
Production: Fredrik Nördstrom
Album length: 46.57 min
Genre: Power Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
HammerFall need no introduction. The long-running Gothenburg power metallers have nothing left to prove. Not anymore. Not for a long time. So the band’s 13th studio album, “Avenge The Fallen”, is on the horizon. How do you round off the intro to a piece when everybody already knows how the rest of it will play out? Tough challenge. “Avenge the Fallen” is a very solid new HammerFall album that brings everything its predecessors brought, and even though all the buzz around the power metal legends fizzled out somewhere around “Crimson Thunder” (2002) – for stricter metal fans, already after the first two albums – HammerFall keep all their songwriting credibility and confidence on the thirteenth studio album too. “Infected” (2011) showed them that experimenting is unwelcome, and its successor “(r)Evolution” (2014) put them right back on the old tracks. Into the comfort zone, which, let’s be honest, fans don’t just welcome but flat-out demand. HammerFall know their musical recipe inside out, so on the thirteenth album it’s still fascinating to watch how deftly they recycle their old tricks, which, tried and tested, ignite again and again.
At a time when the human world has raced far past the edge of self-destruction, ten anthemic tunes armed with warlike lyrics feel all the more fitting. The words: ‘hero’, ‘king’, ‘vengeance’, ‘evil’, ‘freedom’,… Only ‘dragon’ and ‘hammer’ are missing, and the vocabulary of the new song titles would be perfect. ‘Hammer’ was last used, for example, in the title of the previous HammerFall album.
Hope Springs Eternal is a sly recycling of the ballad Glory To The Brave with elements lifted from the catalog of Accept anthems written in some other era. But it ignites. The album is catchy and irresistibly listenable from start to finish. The phrases are typically ‘HammerFall-ish’. Tricks repackaged with an exceptional knack for ‘slipping them in again and again’. Crafty. The pomp is lifted by the shouts of manly crowds filling the space between Joacim Cans’ chorus melodies, and he is, as always, a recognizable and integral part of the band’s character and work on the 13th studio album too. Freedom is in this respect one of the most interesting songs on the whole album. The band has once again convincingly ‘sold’ its old, well-tested trick. The new HammerFall surprise you in no way. But they are extremely listenable. The album has no ‘time thief’, let’s call it an album ‘stinker’. On past albums such as “Dominion” (2019, RockLine review) or “Built To Last” (2016), they weren’t hard to find. The predecessor “Hammer Of Dawn” (2022, RockLine review) has none. And “Avenge The Fallen” follows it up successfully. And that’s good, because it makes for a record that will once again be spinning in your player more often. For the more diehard fans of the band, even for a few months.
The key to this new successful recycling job is the elementary placement of phrases, or rather a very elementary development of chord sequences within the lead motifs. That brings listenability and an instant grab. Even if it reminds you a bit of this now, a bit of that – it keeps reminding you of something HammerFall recorded, but you can’t be bothered to dig through the band’s old albums, because you’re perfectly happy for it to remind you of ‘that something’, since it reminds you ‘again’ and at the same time (again) reminds you of something ‘very good’. Not sure if you’re following, but that’s the essence of recycling: how to serve up your musical formula countless times in a way that every power metal fan who should have gotten sick of you pats you on the back and never even thinks about being tired of it.
The album “Avenge The Fallen” is thus a very compact HammerFall record that the band’s followers have already filed away in their discography collection. It keeps up the very high quality level of its predecessor “Hammer Of The Dawn”. The development is dynamic, which means the album maintains a pleasing variety of lead songwriting structures (motifs) from track to track (already tested many times over, but skillfully repackaged). So its good 47 minutes of playing time fly by very quickly. There’s no artistic miracle here, and none is wanted. What’s more, there can’t and mustn’t be one. HammerFall and the band’s followers know this very well, so with the new album HammerFall stay in exactly the sphere where they feel most comfortable, since they command it with the little finger of their left hand.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Avenge The Fallen
2. The End Justifies
3. Freedom
4. Hail To The King
5. Hero To All
6. Hope Springs Eternal
7. Burn It Down
8. Capture The Dream
9. Rise Of Evil
10. Time Immemorial
Lineup:
Joacim Cans – vocals
Oscar Dronjak – guitar
Pontus Norgren – guitar
Fredrik Larsson – bass
David Wallin – drums
