By Jonny Bakes
HammerFall have been around for pretty much my entire life (yes, I’m in my 30s) and have produced some of my favourite power metal tracks in that time. There’s just something about ‘Hearts on Fire’ and ‘Last Man Standing’ that never fails to get me pumped up, whether that’s for a night out or smashing it at the gym. However, I’ve noticed that in recent years, there hasn’t been as much in the way of massive ‘bangers coming from the HammerFall camp. But with new album ‘Avenge The Fallen’ could it be time for me to find my next dose of power metal motivation?
‘Avenge The Fallen’ is the 13th outing from the Swedish outfit, and the second to be released in the last couple of years, so you certainly couldn’t accuse HammerFall of taking their foot off the gas! However, after 13 albums, you might start thinking that they’d run out of ideas, or that the music would grow stale… but that’s not the case as ‘Avenge the Fallen’ takes things in a subtly different direction whilst maintaining that very obvious HammerFall sound.
Overall, the album is packed with powerful vocals, catchy guitar harmonies and plenty of flair, which is what you’re most likely looking for. There’s influences from classic heavy metal bands thrown into the mix too, with some of the songs taking on so much influence that you could almost mistake them for someone else at first listen. One thing that still remains though is the fantastical imagery in the music, with images of heroes, royalty and epic battles coming through in the music, coupled with the chants that sound like they could come from an ale fueled tavern, it gives ‘Lord Of The Rings’ vibes (or is that because I watched the trilogy to recover from Bloodstock so it’s fresh in my mind?)
The album opens with the sound of a warhorn that invokes a chant of “avenge the fallen” so, in case you’d somehow missed it, it’s pretty clear what the name of the song and the album are! ‘Avenge The Fallen’ is certainly a decent way to open the album, clocking in at the perfect rhythm to get heads banging with plenty of opportunity to repeat the title of the song so just about anyone can sing along. Hell you can get the gist of it and sing along within the first minute or so of the song, so it’ll be a hit for the live show for sure.
The next track steps up the pace with a pretty blistering number that sounds like something straight out of the Saxon back catalogue, in fact the vocals even sound a bit like the mighty Biff to start with. ‘The End Justifies’ is another epic power metal number which is made that bit more special with the false ending where the song appears to finish with an abrupt “the end” but, you guessed it, this was just a ruse that led into the chorus with some additional flair!
All in all though, I struggled to get too excited about ‘Avenge The Fallen’ and felt that it lacked the next big hit that I was looking for. While tracks like ‘Hail To The King’ and ‘Burn It Down’ were strong contenders, they didn’t quite blow me away and unfortunately became a little bit forgettable by the time I finished the album.
Maybe I had set my expectations too high though, as ‘Avenge the Fallen’ is a perfectly solid release from HammerFall and brings exactly what you would expect from a HammerFall release. If you’re already a HammerFall fan, then you’ll most likely get a real kick out of this latest album, and if you merely sit on the fringes of power metal then it’s highly possible that this could be your next big album and the one that pulls you into HammerFall.
For me though, this merely gets a solid “alright” as it’s not like I dislike it, in fact it’s perfectly listenable. It just lacked that special something to push my excitement over the edge.
- ‘Avenge The Fallen‘ is out now.
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