Album Review: Firewind - Still Raging
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
Greek power metallers Firewind celebrated their 20th anniversary as a band last year and as part of their European tour headlined a couple of shows in the band’s hometown Thessaloniki returning to the Principal Club Theater where they had recorded previous live album “Live Premonition” in 2008 and even with the same crew that filmed the 2008 show. The resulting show recorded on 1st October 2022 is now released as a blu-ray and double live album “Still Raging: Live At The Principal Club Theater”.
With this being a 20th anniversary show, the band delves deep back into their discography and nearly all albums covered (with 2005’s “Forged By Fire” being the only exception). There are quite a few songs from 2020’s self-titled album as, due to the pandemic, they were unable to play their new material to an audience at the time. The new material such as ‘Welcome To The Empire’, ‘Orbital Sunrise’ and ‘Rising Fire’ sits comfortably alongside set staples such as ‘Head Up High’, ‘Ode To Leodinas’ and ‘Falling To Pieces’ as well as some golden oldies such as ‘The Fire And The Fury’ and ‘Between Heaven And Hell’.
The band are on superb form with singer Herbie Langhans sounding fantastic with a great melodic range whilst also having enough grit to his voice to compliment the heavy metal riffing from guitarist Gus G. who is nothing short of breathtaking with a fantastic array of crunchy metal riffs and insane solos. The rhythm section of bassist Petros Christo and drummer Joe Nunez are a tight unit and are the backbone of the band holding everything together in this furious performance.
This is a great live release celebrating the 20th anniversary of Firewind. It has great performances and a great song selection (I can forgive the lack of “Forged By Fire” songs even though I have a massive soft spot for that album). Firewind are a scaled down unit since the last live release recorded at the Principal Club Theater (being a guitarist and keyboardist down) but this is a far more rawer, rougher and heavier sounding band in 2023 and this live release demonstrates they still have the fire and the fury.
