The
tenth album by this German power metal combo that already started in 1989 and
still three of the founding members are on board. Torsten Ihlenfeld (guitars),
Milan Loncaric (guitars) and Dieter Bernert (drums) form the back bone of the
band. Things really started to work out for them when they added the talented singer Andy B.
Franck to the line-up in the year 2000 and the album 'Ambiguity' already showed
the big step forward. Andy still sounds like a mix of Dickinson and Halford and
sings fresh like in his early years.
In
the year 2003 their strongest album to date (for me personally) 'Soul Temptation'
was released and put the band definitely on the map. Follow up "Liquid Monster'
extrapolated this strong line, but after that they couldn't reach that same
level. Their 2011 album "On the Spur of the Moment" wasn't their best
either, but
with this new 'Firesoul' a lot of the strong Brainstorm elements are back. The
songs are again much stronger and brings back the memories of their 2003 and 2005 albums.
Influences of bands like Iced Earth, Judas Priest and Hammerfall are the musical
back bone. Bombastic tracks and strong guitar soli form an excellent base of the
well written tracks. The singing of Andy is strong and powerful as ever and with
his characteristic sound and expression. The band is back on track in my opinion
and one of the strongest epic tracks "Recall the Real" underlines that. Nice
melodies, strong singing of Andy and a beautiful sung refrain, a bit reminding
me
of Shadow Gallery, show that. Real powerful and fast songs like "Shadowseeker" and "Fireseeker"
explode out of the speakers and form a nice contrast to the more melodic
songs. On the ltd. Digipack you find two bonus tracks "Disappeared" and "Strangled",
but they were not on my promo so I can't tell you anything about them.
With this new album, the band shows that they are still a band you need to reckon with.
