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Artist: Fires Of Babylon |
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When asked by Metal Heaven to write some material for an 80’s style metal album, Lou St Paul jumped at the chance and with the opportunity to put together a band of known artists from other bands, this was even more of an incentive and thus began the hunt for the Fires Of Babylon line up. Firstly St Paul found a vocalist with the power to bring off this vision. He looked no further than Rob Rock, then a bass player was sought and Kelly Conlon of Death and Monstrosity fame was linked with the pair. Now for a drummer worth his salt and Robert Falzano from Berklee College of Music was picked to complete this powerhouse line-up. What Fires of Babylon are trying to do with this debut album is bring back those great days of 80’s metal, when denim and leather ruled the streets and headbanging and air guitar filled the rock discos across the world. The album gets underway in true 80’s style with ‘Falling To Pieces’, as St Paul comes out all guns blazing with Falzano not far behind with some thundering drums. Then the powerhouse vocals of Rock take over and it's old school all the way from here on in. A pummelling back beat and rampaging yet flamboyant guitars, all backed by a vocalist who can literally strip paint with his tremendous vocal power. Things continue along the heavy path with ‘Devilution’. Again it's no holds barred metal with St Paul once again leading the way with some spellbinding riffs and Rock is equally as impressive vocally once again. The metal assault and battery continues with the rampant ‘When The Kingdom Comes’. This song is more along the Power Metal lines with its grandiose background orchestration and the double kick assignation by Falzano, but it's St Paul’s power shredding that really makes its mark on the track. The album does slow down just a touch with ‘Lake Of Fire’, this one has more of a modern metal feel to it. It's more of a mix between Kamelot and Dio with just a touch of Bay Area metal guitars thrown into the mix to give it that edge. But this is only a short lived recess as it's back to the streaming guitars and thunderous drums for ‘Holy Resurrection’. This one still retains that more modern metal sound with just a touch of old school courtesy of St Paul’s fret board. The album continues with ‘Going Through Changes’ where St Paul uses his full arsenal to great use as he mixes the faster guitar parts with some quite sublime bridges, whilst Rock does what he does best and provides a vocal equal in might to the guitars of St Paul. Tracks of the album for me have to be the rip snorting metal of ‘Lazarus Rising’ and the superb ‘Revolution Coming’ with Rock giving his best vocal of the album so far. It’s back to the blazing metal for the final two songs firstly ‘Generation Of Destruction’ and closing the album with the speed monster ‘Castles Are Burning’. The
problem with trying to resurrect the whole 80’s metal feel is the fact
that you want to do it without the music sounding dated. I think
Fires of Babylon have captured the essence of the era whilst taking on
board the new modern technologies and advances in studio and instruments
to bring this most influential of era bang up to take. |
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Tracklisting: |
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