Ελληνικά
Genre: Speed
Country: Norway
Label: High Roller Records
Year: 2018
I was having a conversation with Magus W. Daoloth once in his martial arts gym and among national football team of Brazil, aristocracy, cooking vegetables, middle Ages, sword fighting and several other issues we talked about speed metal and how the old ones forgot it and the new ones never searched for it. That was almost 5-6 years ago. Fortunately as all come and go speed metal has risen from its ashes as almost all genres and sub genres return once in a while to the spotlight. Of course speed was always an outsider living in the shadows so probably spotlight isn’t the proper word to describe where exactly is right now this totally underrated genre. Black viper are coming from Norway a place where speed was never unpopular in terms of influence as speed thrash and proto black metal had as one of their main ingredients the velocity of speed. Trve or Pvre Speed though as Agent Steel and Abattoir delivered to the masses were obscure hidden treasures for the corpse painted firestarters in Norway too as everywhere in the world. But not for Black Viper, a new Speed metal band from Oslo. The band started out as a solo project in late 2012/early 2013 when drummer Cato, also in Deathhammer, began to write some songs inspired by traditional heavy and speed metal. Half of the material we are dealing in this album is now almost five years old as it was -recorded even though in a rough instrumental demo version -back in 2013 , the same period were also began recording an EP which didn’t get finished, until 2016 when they released their demo »Storming With Vengeance«. All three tracks of the mentioned demo tape have been re-recorded for the album. Hellions of Fire is pretty much a mix between agent steel early works and savage grace debut blended with the legacy of witch hammer’s legendary 1487. Probably this combo should give you Goosebumps but I won’t be surprised either if it won’t ring a bell to all of you under the age of 35. Even though black viper has already written new material that sounds rather different than these raw speed tunes and closer to us metal and Crimson Glory, Queensrÿche or early Fates Warning according to their mastermind Cato, still any possible twisted turn in the near future won’t affect how »Hellions Of Fire« sound and how marvelous example of its genre it is. As only Time will only tell if black viper are a group of geniuses or a bunch of locos we must be patient to see what tomorrow knows and until this day comes we should enjoy this ecstatic underground gem.
4,5/6
