Frontiers Music [Release date : 24.1.25]
This new Ferrymen album should make some solid advance sales on the basis of Stan W Decker’s front cover artwork alone.
Take a look. Classy.
Ronnie Romero, Magnus Karlson and Mike Terrana are back together again, for their fourth album. All three have been around the block many times, dallying with Primal Fear, Sunstorm, Rainbow, Rage, Axel Rudi Pell, before moving on. The Power Metal equivalent of wandering minstrels, only louder and harder and heavier.
Their reputation goes before them etc etc
In many ways Iron Will is a glorious summary of the threesome’s fertile relationship, Not new, but better. Anthemic choruses, alternately haunting and hair raising vocals, big chords and choirs, blistering fretwork, and most of all, memorable melodies, the bit that many bands forget, are here in abundance.
‘Choke Hold’ and ‘Mother Unholy’ open the album. They deliver the music with a righteous intensity. The first is explosive, fret melting melodic metal, and the other is a quasi religious slice of power metal with choirs and bells on.
Karlsson’s glorious solos are another entry in his fast expanding catalogue of elegant illustrations of the overlap between Power Metal and Hard Rock.
Like many tracks here, there is an operatic undercurrent threading the songs together.
Listen hard to key tracks like ‘Adrenalin’, ‘Darkest Storm’ and You’re The Joker’ and you can hear Romero’s vocal agility, Karlsson’s short bursts of tuneful, razoring axework and Terrana’s insistent percussive thump constantly refreshing the page, stories being told, protests being made, confirming the chemistry that holds it all together.
Not to downplay previous efforts, you have to say that this time they’ve really nailed it…securing their flamboyant, 3 dimensional colours to the mast with vigour and confidence.
Whether it’s the Melodic Rock undercurrent that runs through ‘Iron Will’ or the Symphonic Rock overtones of ‘Above It All’, the influences are welcome, each shaped and formed into something genuinely fresh and new, adding a greater sense of range to the band’s Melodic Metal.
Craftsmanship at work. ****
Review by Brian McGowan
Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK
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Power Plays w/c 24 March 2025
HARRI LARKIN Too Close To The Sun (Robot Distro)
SANDNESS Not Your Dog (Rockshots Records)
DOCTOR BLACK Drag Me Down (indie)
COHEED AND CAMBRIA Goodbye Sunshine (Virgin Music Group)
LEONI JANE KENNEDY Closer (indie)
SMALL TOWN POLITICS Red Lights (indie)
Featured Albums w/c 24 March 2025
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Singer Songwriter)
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