Opening instrumental track ‘The Joker’ has Spanish guitar, pipes and a South American flavour that stretches to just over a minute and a half before bursting into real opener ‘Gotta Get Away’ a song which doesn’t seem to take anything from that opening theme. That said it’s a great melodic rocker with, cool guitars and a late eighties Rainbow vibe that is really cool. And you know what the ore you spin it the more you will love the real ‘vintage Bonfire’ feel.
So far so good, let’s dive in further!
The upbeat ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’ isn’t a half bad follow up either – a nice noisy rocker will a killer chorus and nice thrust; whilst ‘Ride the Blade’ is grittier and sports some of the best guitar on the album. That is followed by the only ballad here ‘When an Old Man Cries’ (there’s a lot of old or blind men crying in Rock history aren’t there?) which has a Scorpions type feel to it. This is something special though and for all the great ballads Bonfire has penned over the years this is right up there.
We’re soon back to rocking though with the first single ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Survivors’ a nice catchy tune that is made to be played live; it’s followed by ‘Fire and Ice’ which has a touch more Metal about it; and ‘Warrior’ which changes it up again – a Melodic Rocker that threatens to steal the show with a huge chorus that has a bit of vintage Bon Jovi about it. It’s a great song thought sadly there’s nothing here that really sounds like it on the rest of the album.
‘Fire Etrude’ is essentially just a floating solo that lasts for almost a minute and a half presumably like the intro planted to attract a few more streaming fees and with songs of the quality that appear on this album it’s hard to begrudge a couple of diversions. ‘Breaking Out’ then casts us into that harder territory again and the title track that follows comes with a message to look after the world we live in.
Te album closes with the short piano-led instrumental ‘The Surge’ 1.10 of piano, drums and guitars that lead into the fiery closer ‘Gloryland’ a nice wail of guitars greets you and Bonfire is again on fire.It’s one of the best here,nice and ‘Metal’ with some great soaring vocals and a soaring chorus that will have you tapping that foot, banging that head and singing along.
As a bonus there’s also a great acoustic version of ‘When an Old Man Cries’ that maybe even squeezes in more emotion that the preceding electric version. This may be the best Bonfire album since the glory days of the late 80’s.
9/10
Tracklisting: 01 – The Joker | 02 – Gotta Get Away |03 – The Devil Made Me Do It | 04 – Ride The Blade | 05 – When An Old Man Cries | 06 – Rock ‘n’ Roll Survivors | 07 – Fire And Ice | 08 – Warrior | 09 – Fire Etude | 10 – Breaking Out | 11 – Fistful Of Fire | 12 – The Surge | 13 – Gloryland | 14 – When An Old Man Cries (Acoustic Version)
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