BravePicks 2019 - HELL FIRE's Mania #28
December 4, 2019, 5 years ago
As Dark Angel famously said, “Time Does Not Heal”, but it certainly moves fast and here we are again, staring at our annual BravePicks countdown where the devout scribes at BraveWords get to stand up and shout! 2019, yet another banner year for extreme music, whether you call it heavy metal or not. We do, cuz we wear it on our sleeves! So the votes are in and the compiling is complete! It's time to crown the winners and put the noose around the bands that truly let us down.
So who will be our #1? You’ll find out as we count down the BravePick Of 2019 each day in December!
Everybody has an opinion and it’s time for ours! And stay tuned in January for the writers’ individual Top 20s (new studio albums ONLY), Top 5 Brave Embarrassments (a fan favorite!), Top 3 Concerts, What/Who Needs To Stop In 2019? and Metal Predictions For 2020. All will be showcased come the New Year!
So let’s commence the good, bad and ugly of 2019! First up, the Top 30 releases of 2019!
BravePicks 2019
28) HELL FIRE – Mania (Riding Easy)
Speed metal to the max! These California young guns are armed with guitars with odes to battles and war and on their third album Mania it all comes together with a ferocious bite! There’s a lot to like from these guys and these gobble up the ‘70s era guitar jams along with ‘80s blazing theatrics and spit it out for a feast of traditional metal with bursts of thrash and speed. To quote one of the best wrestlers of all-time, whatcha gonna do when Hell Fire Mania runs wild on you?
Scribe Mark Gromen praised the record in his review, stating “Take, for example, the opening ‘Born To Burn’ which begins with heads down, gargle throated thrash, but the mid-section offers a tasty/subtle (reduced aggro) guitar break. Then ‘Isolator’ kicks off with the rumble of bass and early-‘80s Euro guitars: no hints of thrash intensity, although blistering twin leads, come the break. Structurally/sonically (vocals atop restrained guitar, gradually building to crescendo) ‘Knights Of The Holy’ recalls an Iced Earth outtake, with a nod to Iron Maiden (which is sort of redundant, just look at Schaffer's choice of lettering for his moniker!). Not purely for the burgeoning neo-traditionalist, nor the out-and-out thrash fan. Hopefully this ‘tweener’ will find a home in the collections of both camps.”
BravePicks 2019 Top 30
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28) HELL FIRE - Mania (Riding Easy)
29) SOILWORK - Verkligheten (Nuclear Blast)
30) MEMORIAM – Requiem For Mankind (Nuclear Blast)
