Album Review: HammerFall - Avenge The Fallen
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
HammerFall have been a force in heavy metal for over thirty years forming at a time when traditional heavy metal was dead in the water. When the band released their debut album “Glory To The Brave” in 1997, nu-metal was at its height and all things old school in metal were deemed tragically uncool by the mainstream rock press. What it did though was spearhead a resurrection of traditional heavy metal and power metal in Europe resulting in a plethora of bands forming who like HammerFall were determined to play the metal they loved and not was the fashion or trend of the time. Thirty one years later HammerFall still hold the heavy flame high and continue to do what they do best on thirteenth album “Avenge The Fallen”.
“Avenge The Fallen” was written mainly whilst the band were on tour the past couple of years with the band having a mini studio set up on their tour bus allowing them to ride the adrenaline high from performing on stage and craft new material back on the bus. The energy and enthusiasm in these songs is apparent and “Avenge The Fallen” is classic HammerFall with ten songs of fist pumping, anthemic metal glory which straddles the line between classic heavy metal and the European heavy metal sound.
The pounding title track kicks things off in aggressive style and the band keep the momentum up for the majority of the album with anthemic tunes such as ‘The End Justifies’, ‘Hail To The King’ and ‘Rise Of Evil’. The album does lose a bit of steam when it comes to the obligatory ballad ‘Hope Springs Eternal’ which is one of the few weak moments. The band sound on top form with frontman Joacim Cans demonstrating his incredible vocal skills whilst guitarists Oscar Dronjak and Pontus Norgren rip out some monster riffs and solos whilst it is all held together by the rhythmic powerhouse of bassist Fredrik Larsson and drummer David Wallin.
“Avenge The Fallen” is a very typical HammerFall album which works both in its favour as it plays to all the bands strengths but a little against it as it is a very safe sounding album for the band with some songs sounding a bit on the samey side. It will definitely tick plenty of boxes for long term fans of the band and thirteen albums in HammerFall know their audience and how to write great catchy and anthemic metal songs. “Avenge The Fallen” isn’t the best album that HammerFall have done but neither is it a weak one. It is simply a very solid and enjoyable release from the band.
