RAVENSIRE
Ironwill
(A Forja Records)
28:33min
The nice drawn black and white cover illustration brings back some memories from the glorious '80 to me. The artwork would perfectly fit to one of those obscure US Metal private pressings... you know... Knights and Metal gallore. And apart from it: this MCD deserves it to be pressed on precious "black gold" as well. But calm down first and see what these five Metal warriors from Portugal have to offer. This horde is based in Lisbon and delivers us an epic, obscure kind of Metal which easily should attract attention of fans from acts like OMEN, IRON SWORD, MANILLA ROAD or SLOUGH FEG. The EP contains five tracks, four own compositions and a cover version from WILD SHADOW (an old Heavy Metal outfit from their native country which was active around 1985 - 1990 if I am right). All tunes are played with a lot off passion and you really can feel that the flame of Metal is burning in the heart of each member who are by far no newcomers to the scene. The riffs are powerful, quite memorable and very well executed. In spite of being quite catchy the songs have also some excellent technical skills to offer but all is played for the song's sake. Everything is spiced up with some razorsharp guitar leads which immediately makes you to play airguitar at once. The drumming supports the great guitar work as well and provides a very solid, pounding rhythm and never let this Metal machine stop. A great plus is the vocal performance of singer Ze Gomez (ex - WILD SHADOW member) which compliments the music... it's like the icing on the cake. So if you are into pure, honest and raw Heavy Metal music with the right attitude then you shouldn't hesitate to check RAVENSIRE out or add it right away on your shopping list. Their charismatic "Ironwill" EP impressed me alot and I wouldn't be surprised to hear more from these South European Metalheads in the near future. Thumbs up for this solid work. You can get this five tracker driectly from the band at www.facebook.com/Ravensire or their label at www.aforja.org.
Michael Oelschlegel
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