Frontiers [Release date: 11.11.22]
Spend an hour with Ring Of Fire’s new album, Gravity, and you’re sure to find the music impossible to nail down. It’s a moving target. A neo-classical, Prog/Power Metal sub genre, or maybe that’s a a sub-sub genre, or maybe …..
The history of the band is well documented online… the more important and worth repeating elements are that founder members Mark (Malmsteen/ Shining Black) Boals and Vitali (Artension/ TSO) Kuprij are still on board.
Of particular note is the addition of guitarist/ writer/ producer Aldo (Secret Sphere/ Sweet Oblivion) Lonobile for this release.
The metal is carefully contrived. And it’s crafted to achieve a fine and delicate balance between genres. You hear Lonobile’s hand on the studio helm, his production touch is becoming increasingly inventive and adventurous as the years go by.
There’s a storytelling skill at play here too. ‘Melanchonia’s more reflective lyrical moments are laced with bombastic cues, readying us for the more explosive bursts of metalised emotions.
It closely follows ‘The Beginning’, clearly the album’s Magnum Opus, and ‘Storm Of The Pawns’ by taking a few of Prog’s building blocks … complex sentiments, a sense of classical sophistication, displays of musical dexterity, and then reshaping them in the image of neoclassical power metal.
Sometimes they bring a dissonance to the music that is quite unexpected, as in ‘King Of Fool’s and ’21st Century Fate Unknown’, This perhaps designed to represent the psychological changes being presented in the narratives.
The title track, ‘Gravity’ is an absolute peach. There’s a lot of hard rock mixed in with the metal, and it’s underlaid by dramatic, cinematic synths, peppered with infectious vocal hooks, like Danny Elfman and a let loose Lenny Wolf had collaborated on a movie score.
Encouragingly, Ring Of Fire keep up the quality right to the last ringing note. ****
Review by Brian McGowan
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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024
In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections
Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
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