Ironflame: Where Madness Dwells

Ironflame are a Heavy/Power Metal project from the mind of one Andrew D'Cagna that delivers all the fist pumping, tried and true, old school metal sounds that any self respecting headbanger can embrace. On Where Madness Dwells (Ironflame's 4th album in 6 years), there's not much in the way of anything new, but that's only a problem if you aren't already a convert to the veritable church of molten steel that is this particular kind of music.

Where Madness Dwells finds D'Cagna bringing riffs aplenty, with plenty of soaring vocal melodies that certainly bring to mind early Bruce-era Iron Maiden (D'Cagna actually sounds like a love child of Bruce and Ronnie Romero vocally) combined with a little bit of the stripped down sparsity of the more modern epic heavy metal scene ala Eternal Champion or Visigoth. It's good stuff, well written and performed by D'Cagna alone. Dude clearly has some serious musical chops, and while there's no particularly flashy or virtuosic solos, I'm not sure they'd fit with the vibe of Where Madness Dwells. This is some feel good, beer drinking, denim and leather Metal, as it were.

It's a pretty brisk album, as well. Aside from one major outlier (the fittingly dirgy "A Funeral Within") this album is fast paced, with riffs and storming rhythms bringing all the fingerless glove clad fists to the yard. While the band does a great job writing cool songs with a gallop to them, the album closing title track is probably my favorite song on the album. With its immense opening riff, you know you are about to ascend some sort of mythic mountain with your loincloth-clad brethren in tow. Not unlike Manowar's Hail to England era material, it's a rousing track made for adventuring.

Where Madness Dwells is an album that doesn't fix what isn't broken. It's a well written and performed record that pays tribute to the titans as well as contemporary masters of the genres it pulls from. It's not the apex of Epic/Power metal by any means, but if you even have a cursory interest in that style this is well worth a listen. There's nothing to dislike here.

Tracklist:
1. Everlasting Fire
2. Under the Spell
3. Kingdom of Lies
4. A Funeral Within
5. Ready to Strike
6. The Phantom Flame
7. A Curse upon Mankind
8. Where Madness Dwells
9. Infernal Angels
10. Sands of Time

Added: August 19th 2022
Reviewer: Brandon Miles
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 475
Language: english

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