Reign Of Fury originally hail from the mean streets of Cheltenham. Prowling the stages of the English South West and Midlands for the last fifteen years, the band honed its sound; a surprisingly authentic sounding Bay Area thrash/Metal hybrid, until they are now in a position to release this, their debut album.

If you like your Metal a la Priest, Maiden and old(ish) Metallica then you are gonna love Reign Of Fury's 'World Detonation'. It is a thrashed up harmonised dual guitar meat fest that furls the styles of the old guard up in chain mailed sheets of well preserved youthful exuberance.

The opening one-two of instrumental 'Goodbye Mother Earth' and 'Infernal Conflict' nail the album's colours to the mast in no uncertain terms. The Metallica-meets-power-Metal mix is a combo on which the rest of the album comfortably sits with the occasional death grunt vocal thrown in to break up the otherwise octave scalingly clean vox.

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It is good but not perfect because other than a few quiet intros, 'Heaven Waits, Hell Takes' and 'Vile Submission' for instance, there is not a lot that differentiates the songs from each other on 'World Detonation'. Any subtleties that may have been added have been pretty much crushed in the Metallica meets Maiden mash up and thus the chances of anything sticking when everything goes quiet are not good.

Until the closing track, 'The Hound' that is, because here we have a nine minute dose of heavy metal that is the result of the rest of the album being distilled and filtered until only the purist essence is left. If 'The Hound' does not become a darling of the mosh pit then there really is no hope for us at all.

New, 'World Detonation' certainly isn't; you will be lucky to find it being described anywhere as inventive or innovative. It is an album that you will be almost instantly familiar with, accompanied as it is by the ghosts of thrash's other big hitters Testament and Megadeth. Yet Reign Of Fury does its Metal thing very well.

Originality issues aside, there is no denying the album has considerable commercial potential. 'World Detonation' has the accessibility of the likes of Trivium and Dragonforce at their best; an ease of use for the listener that whilst not necessarily being substantial enough to satisfy the needs of the veteran of Metal's bar wars, will almost certainly appeal to the younger, less patient Metalhead who demands instant gratification.

To release this sort of Metal album now must have taken nuts of iron as some of the biggest hitters of the genre have released albums recently into an already engorged market place. In this instance however, the quality of the album is such that the gamble could well pay off and Reign Of Fury might just be able to justify hitching a ride on the tails of this particular thrash juggernaut.

For Metalheads in the know, 'World Detonation' will either verge on the parody or prove a nice comfortable welcoming album to get into. For those, however, who know not where they step then perhaps this album is the perfect introduction to the genre.

The track ‘World Detonation' is available as a free download at www.reverbnation.com/reignoffury or you can take a peek here...









29.11.12