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HELL FIRE
Reckoning

RidingEasy (2022)
Rating: 5.5/10

Try not to lose these guys due to their formulaic band moniker because this is a solid heavy metal record, the San Francisco, California-based band’s fourth full-length album since their birth 12 years ago.

Hell Fire occasionally flirt with speedier passages which they successfully fuse with power metal outages too. There’s a drama to the vocal commands of Jake Nunn who spent some time in the reformed Sentinel Beast where, as with here, he plays guitar too. Alongside Nunn there’s fellow axeman Tony Campos, bassist Kai Sun and drummer Mike Smith.

Hell Fire are not overly technical. Tracks such as the title track are solid power metal exultations, while ‘Addicted To Violence’, although extremely generic, is an upbeat, snappy thrash outburst, and ‘Medieval Cowboys’ has a more formulaic gallop to its design. In a sense, Hell Fire is not a band that needs to progress as this is the sort of molten metal that’ll fill small local clubs and get the crowd sweaty n’ rowdy.

Admittedly I do feel rather removed from the macho yelps of Nunn and the 11 tracks on offer do start to merge into one. ‘It Ends Tonight’, ‘Thrill Of The Chase’ and ‘Nowhere Fast’ stuck with me slightly, but there’s nothing here that really grips you and the same could be said for material on the previous records of the band.

At times there’s early Iron Maiden meets Metallica energy but without the quality of song writing and I just know I’ll hear countless more bands of this ilk. That’s not to say this isn’t a record of exuberance and power, and maybe if they set themselves up more so along the lines of the opening title track I’d feel more rooted in its presence.

Reckoning remains a standard, contemporary heavy metal platter that is determined to keep the metal flag flying, and for that I commend Hell Fire. However, when one considers some of the quality bands around at the moment, my rating has to reflect the rather unfulfilling nature of this release.

Neil Arnold

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