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September 2023

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July 2023

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June 2023

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Bonfire: Fistful Of Fire

Melodic Heavy Metal Rock

4.5/5.0

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AFM Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 01.04.2020 | Released: 03.04.2020

Bonfire, with founder and guitarist Hans Ziller as driver, have been traversing the hard rock and heavy metal landscape for some 35 years, not a small accomplishment. But lately, the band seems to be going from strength to strength, notably with several very consistent and pleasing studio albums, the assumption of the enthusiastic Alexx Stahl on vocals, and a recent tour supporting metal icons Judas Priest. Now Bonfire returns with their latest, and if I counted correctly, nineteenth studio album, Fistful Of Fire.

Bonfire

Essentially, Fistful Of Fire finds Bonfire revving up their consistent melodic hard rock, jacked up with heavy metal edge, yet wrapped up in AOR accessibility. Every song is a perfect storm of strong AOR ready song melody and harmony, guitar and vocal harmony, rock gallop and groove from the rhythm section, and then made sweet with fine refrains and spicy by soaring guitar solos. That's a long sentence, but also the musical essence of Bonfire. Above all these things, you'll hear the energy and passion of Stahl's voice, a vocal style something akin to a Jon Bon Jovi timbre. He's quickly becoming one my favorite traditional hard and heavy vocalists.

You'll hear some melodic, fast and heavy, fandamntastic rockers with The Devil Made Me Do It, Rock n Roll Survivors, Breaking Out, and Gloryland. For something of a twist, Bonfire adds some synths (probably guitar synths) to the mix of Ride The Blade and Warrior. But these also turn on Bonfire's signature melodic metal rock, with the latter really turning up the rock groove and AOR accessibility. A requisite, rising, melodic metal ballad comes with When An Old Man Cries, complete with requisite concluding bombastic guitar solo. Bonfire offers an acoustic version of the song to conclude the album.

Simply said, with Fistful O Fire Germany's Bonfire offers another strong and entertaining album of their consistent melodic heavy metal rock. Easily recommended.

Simply said, with Fistful O Fire Germany's Bonfire offers another strong and entertaining album of their consistent melodic heavy metal rock. Easily recommended.

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Formed in 1999 by singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Erik Martensson, Sweden's Eclipse is well into their third decade of making music. In the recent past, their recordings and reputation have ... [ Read More ]