When you work as a music reviewer, it is no secret that you get to hear a few albums that you kind of like, there are also a lot of ho-hum rock albums that you listen to once simply to review, and then you never listen to again. Once in awhile though comes an album that cannot be described as anything else but brilliant. Black Star Riders’ brand new album Heavy Fire is one such album – this is not just a good album… this is a great album. This is an album full of ten tight, catchy rock anthems that are guaranteed to become a classic.
After just one listens to Heavy Fire, I was totally in love with it and already found myself walking around humming the tracks from it. Since then I must have listened to it another ten times and every time I do I fall a little more in love with it.
During the recording process of Heavy Fire Black Star Riders’ had to cut down twenty-one tracks to ten tracks and they have done an amazing effort because what you are left with is an album of ten great rock tracks with no fillers in sight.
The album kicks off with the title track, Heavy Fire, a track that doesn’t sound too dissimilar to the music that Theory Of A Deadman were creating in their early days. It sees Black Star Riders settle into a ‘cowboy’ rock sound but when the lyrics turn to about being a ‘regular G.I. Joe’ you begin to realise that this is a song with a much deeper meaning. This is followed up by the faster pace of When The Night Comes In which really hits its straps when the gospel choir comes in and lifts it to an entire whole different level.
Dancing With The Wrong Girl has a distinct 80s feel to it but is catchy as all hell, especially the chorus that is so infectious it will get stuck in your head for days to come. One of the things that does hit you about this album is that no two tracks ever sound the same – nowhere is this more obvious than with Who Rides The Tiger which is rock at its gruffest which is then followed up by Cold War Love – a slowed down love ballad that never sounds cheesy.
Testify Or Say Goodbye and True Blue Kid sees Black Star Riders go back to their roots with some very distinctive Thin Lizzy guitar riffs while the catchiness of the album returns on Thinking About Could Get Me Killed and Ticket To Rise… the latter which also has brilliant female backing vocals to it that sound amazing. The album then closes out with the faster paced Letting Go Of Me which leaves with the deep thought of ‘kiss tomorrow goodbye.’
Heavy Fire is truly a stunning album, an album that is worthy of the highest praise. This is an album that has been put together by a rock band so tight that they know exactly what their fans want. A stunning rock album that deserves to become legendary.
5 Stars
