Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Firewind
Label: Century Media
Release: 2017
Length: 49:13
Rating: 4/5
Firewind are back with their eighth studio album overall. They’re a Greek outfit from Thessaloniki led by guitar monster or guitar deity (take your pick) Gus G, also the axeman for the enthroned mad prince of darkness Ozzy Osbourne. From a modest little project to real international success! That’s the Firewind story. The band, active since 1998, so they still caught the tail end of the power metal wave that blazed up in the second half of the nineties, now come out swinging with a new album built around a concept of fearless Greek battles against the Persians, with the showdown between the two sides at Thermopylae and Salamis (480 BC) as the centerpiece. That’s the very subject Iron Maiden bellowed about back in 1986, over the unbridled history-lesson lyrics of the famous history graduate Bruce Dickinson.
So. Clichés aside. Firewind are power metal, but power metal with their own recognizable art charisma and format. Simple as that. Thanks to the unique and outstanding Gus, who confirms his growth into an excellent composer on this album. His solos remain a special treat and a story of their own. The man stays loyal to his neo-classical style and doesn’t budge from it an inch. Just as Gus G stays extremely fast when soloing, Firewind stay extremely fast in developing new compositions too. They mostly know only top speed, and that’s how the album as a whole unfolds. The exceptions are the moody intros and outros of the songs, which only strengthen the epic, bombastic feel of this thoroughly pompous power metal album (Ode to Leonidas).
Gus G has had Bob Katsionis at his side since 2004. He’s actually the regular guitarist of the newer melodic metal band Serious Black, but in Firewind he plays keyboards and the occasional rhythm guitar (depending on what each song calls for). He joins in on Gus’s guitar »perversions« with keyboards, and the two keep a raging crossfire of soloing escapades going between guitar – keys throughout (in the middle-eight passages). So it’s no surprise that the opening track Hands Of Time recalls the look and work of fellow Finns Stratovarius. Luckily, that feeling is only present in the opener. Otherwise the album works, as a whole, within the general reach of the power metal genre: aggressive as required, furious, unbridled, even sinister and dark. So no fear of light, easy »noodling«, and at the same time the band can boast a step up in maturity, having come up with a set of extremely compact, equally strong power metal burners where it’s hard to pick the highlights. Luckily that also means there are no tracks on the album that are so-called »time stinkers«, padding out the running time. A song like Live And Die By The Sword is built from several motif and rhythm changes, which, given the constantly flowing, dynamically graded development of the song, is further proof of the compositional virtues of Gus and company. In that respect Firewind are closer, both production-wise and compositionally, to the German approach to heavy metal. The easiest compositional parallels can be found with the solo releases of former Accept guitarist Herman Frank. That’s obvious, for instance, in the guitar phrasing of Back On The Throne. Speaking of that track, its opening section is stunning, serving up a keyboard arrangement that sounds remarkably like the arranging approach of both »House Of Athreus« albums by Virgin Steele.
Swapping vocalist Apollo Papathanasiou (Spiritual Beggars, Evil Masquerade) for Henning Basse (ex-Metalium) turns out, when all’s said and done, to be the riskiest factor that might have kept the new Firewind from being at least as effective as their previous studio effort »Few Agianst Many« (2012). No need to worry. Basse has clearly matured over the years into a top-notch vocalist too, and the rather stoic lukewarmness and expressionlessness from his Metalium days is forgotten. In Firewind he delivers all the varied, colorful range of melodically attractive and authoritative performance the new album demands. So the vocalist swap was the right call!
With »Immortals«, and setting aside the clichéd and well-worn story of its chosen historical concept about fearless Greek hoplites, Firewind may have put out the strongest album of their career, since the new record shows an incredible maturity in the intelligent, well-thought-out stacking of songs into a constantly attractive power metal format. Even though everything in the genre was said long ago. But Firewind manage to hold on to their own artistic stamp in handling the craft of power metal on the new album too.
Firewind – Ode To Leonidas (official video):
Line-up
Henning Basse – vocals
Gus G – guitar, backing vocals
Bob Katsionis – keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Petros Christodoulidis – bass guitar, backing vocals
Johan Nunez – drums
Production
Gus G & Dennis Ward
Track list
01. Hands Of Time
02. We Defy
03. Ode To Leonidas
04. Back On The Throne
05. Live And Die By The Sword
06. Wars Of Ages
07. Lady Of 1000 Sorrows
08. Immortals
09. Warriors And Saints
10. Rise From The Ashes
11. Visions Of Tomorrow (bonus track)
