Firewind – Still Raging
Firewind – Still Raging
AFM Records
Release Date: 01/09/23
Running Time: 01:46:00
Review by Simon Black
9/10
This release is a double live album and Blu-Ray / DVD release and I’m rather delighted that for once the visual material has been shared for review alongside of the audio, which doesn’t happen very often. Recorded at the band’s hometown of Thessaloniki, Greece last year this is very much a celebration of the band’s twenty-year history to date. To be fair any live show has to deliver that to an extent, but the mix of material is fairly balanced across their nine studio albums to date and if, like me, you’re none too familiar with the back catalogue, then it’s a damned fine place to start.
Firewind are one of the consistently best rated of Greece’s prolific crop of Power Metal acts, but despite some damned fine output over the years, they haven’t been as commercially successful as perhaps they should. It’s also fair to say that their core market remains Greek, and even in parts of Europe more supportive of the genre they remain relatively obscure. I guess there are two main contributions to this state of affairs…
Firstly, this has always been a project revolving around virtuoso guitarist Gus G., but the problem is he’s so good, that he’s been in huge demand over the years from everyone from Mystic Prophecy, Nightrage, Arch Enemy, Dream Evil to Ozzy Osbourne over the decades – not to mention some solo work. Secondly, there’s been a revolving door on the microphone stand and drum stool over the last twenty years, which has made it difficult to keep this project running consistently. Although the instrumental side of the line-up has been relatively stable of late, when you change your frontman every few years, it really does make it harder for an audience to nail associations down. This time out Herbie Langhans is in the frontman spot, but given that like Gus G. he has commitments to Avantasia, Seventh Avenue, Radiant and his own Sonic Haven project this problem is not likely to go away any time soon. As a reviewer this really does rather force you to treat this as a new start and I’m happy to treat it as such and start this off with an open mind.
Now the advantage in hiring Langans, is you have a man who has had a lot of experience of late of standing in front of crowds who don’t know him and belting out material which he didn’t write or record like he owned it, as he’s been part of the touring line up for Avantasia for the last few album cycles. That is really dropping a singer into the deep end, and the fact that he has risen to that occasion so well there makes him the perfect man for this job, along with the fact that his vocal timbre is pretty close to original Firewind front man Stephen Fredrick. His power and confidence come over hugely well here, although he wisely steps back and lets Gus do the talking in between songs for the home crowd, given he’s not a native Greek speaker.
The show is the full length one from that anniversary show and that sadly also means you have to grit your teeth through five minutes of drum solo from the admittedly blisteringly tight young Jo Nunez. Although technically that could be interpreted as a mere introduction to the face melting shreddery that is instrumental track ‘The Fire And The Fury’, with Gus G. channelling his inner Ace Frehley and giving us some smoking guitar which somehow manages not to throw the tuning off, or indeed snap the strings. Either way, it works well visually even though this is not the hugest of venues and therefore a bit limited in terms of theatrics.
Firewind work really well live, and it’s these three instrumentalists that are the powerhouse reason for that, with a performance tight enough to sever fingers on. Unlike a lot of Northern European Power Metal, Gus G. is the only guitarist, and there’s no keyboards to be had apart from the click intro track, which is one of the reasons I don’t think it’s a fair pigeonhole for them, as it owes more to trad Metal despite and has a way broader appeal.
It’s a small-scale show, but that means the music and performance do the talking. And they do it brilliantly, with pace and flow that means the run time just slips by, which in an age where theatrics, pyro, video screens and other gimmicks tend to dominate to keep the attention the fact that they don’t need to says it all. Enjoyable, with some spectacular performance and some catchy tracks I didn’t expect to enjoy this quite as much as I did, and that in a single sentence captures exactly why I keep doing this.
‘Maniac’ Official Live Video
TRACKLISTING:
01. Welcome to the Empire
02. I am the Anger
03. Head Up High
04. Devour
05. Destination Forever
06. Orbitual Sunrise
07. World on Fire
08. Drum solo
09. The Fire & the Fury
10. Ode to Leonidas
11. Overdrive
12. Mercenary Man
13. Lady of 1000 sorrows
14. Break away
15. Between Heaven and Hell
16. Rising Fire
17. Maniac
18. Hands of Time
19. Few Against Many
20. Falling To Pieces
LINE-UP:
Gus G. – Guitars
Herbie Langhans – Vocals
Petros Christo – Bass
Jo Nunez – Drums
LINKS:
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