It was about a year ago when Stormwarrior’s debut album hit us and with it’s Walls of Jericho inspired True Metal it made a lot of people’s heads turn and take notice. While being lambasted by critics for being too unoriginal the band took no notice and stuck to their True Metal roots and have now delivered us a new EP that has three songs that will be on the new album coming soon and the 2001 Spikes and Leather demo for the hardcore fans. While I am not blind and I can see that this band offers nothing new to the metal scene they do play what I call “feel good” metal in the sense that when you put this on you just feel good to be a metalhead. Not everything out there has to revolutionize the metal community sometimes you want a reliable standby that you know will never disappoint.

The three new songs all sound like the Stormwarrior we’ve known for the past year so there’s no worries there. The speed has been dropped a couple of notches though I noticed, there’s not many thunderers so to speak, like Sign of the Warlorde or Bounde by the Oathe instead they are more of a midtempo nature, more inclined to be a rousing fistpumper in a packed hall than an all out shredfest. The first of the new songs is Odin’s Warriors, the first of two “warrior” songs on here. As the opener it is a worthy song, a good midtempo number with a predictable but satisfying loud n proud chorus. Vocalist and guitarist “Thunder Axe” (oh man you gotta check out their pseudonyms, they’re hilarious) has improved his voice slightly in the interim and he sounds a bit cleaner in delivery and not as accented except on certain parts and passages. Warrior begins with a good pounding bass drum, you know the one that the bands always use to go “HEY, HEY” to live, and then descends into your typical True Metal type of anthem. The title track is my personal favorite on here, musically it is pretty similar to the rest of the new songs but the lyrics are so cheesy they’re cool in a Manowarion type of way. I mean c’mon man you can’t mess with “Pentagrams and the 666 / we’re the messengers from Hell” or “Denim, leather, chains, and spikes it’s a heavy metal law” lest a heavy metal templar bust through your wall and smash you with a hammer of stone and steel. I know though that Stormwarrior know the cheese content is very high in lyrics such as this and they know their fans don’t mind so it’s all good, I’m not gonna rip on em too much. I wish the chorus happened more than once in the song however because it is really fun to sing along to but when its over the song is over too. The last new song is the fastest one as well, Thy Laste Fyre misspells and all, is a good way to close the look on the new album as it is the best song that encapsulates Stormwarrior’s sound. While I personally like the title track the best Thy Laste Fyre has some really cool guitar solos and has an urgent feel to it overall. The three demo tracks from 2001 are nice to hear, they all have a real gritty feel to em and an overall much heavier slant as well. I’m glad to see this included because it would have been a pain in the ass to track down an original version of the demo and hey I can’t complain too much about an extra fifteen minutes of music now can I?

For fans of the debut you can pick this up without any worries at all. For those of you who haven’t heard of Stormwarrior yet or aren’t too familiar with them I’d say pick up their debut, Stormwarrior first. While there isn’t really any growth from that to Heavy Metal Fire with a band like this you really don’t ask for or expect them to all of a sudden change styles drastically and instead of singing about the Glory of Metal, shift gears and sing about their deep pain within. Despite the high points I have noted in the review I am a little, (note I said a little) worried about the bands future. They seem to be like Dream Evil in the sense that while the debut was a spectacular although nostalgic surprise, the second album was more of the same and as such the impact wasn’t the same as it was on the debut. We’ll just have to wait and see but in the meantime Heavy Metal Fire is a good buy for staunch Power Metal fans.