“Another Dimension” is actually Greek Metal Crimson Fire’s 3rd album, over a period of around 11 years. With something like a five year gap between each one, the band have taken the time to steadily evolve their straight edged Heavy Metal approach to something less restricting and more varied. Don’t get me wrong – Crimson Fire are certainly still a Metal band, but each track has a subtly different basis, meaning the band actually have a retro type of sound…that could be from any time in the last 30 years or so!
So what the hell am I on about? Well, opener ‘Judas’ sets it’s stall out as a bit of a nod towards Iron Maiden with a great Murray/Smith style guitar melody line alongside some Dickinson-esque vocal gymnastics. This higher vocal style continues into second track ‘Don’t Fall From The Sky’, which feels like an Italian Symphonic Metal band from the turn of the Millennium – Skylark, Highlord and Secret Sphere spring to mind, with some early Stratovarius crashing the Mediterranean party. Then we get track three, which is an altogether more commercial affair, big on synths and coming across like an American Melodic Metal band from the late 80’s with it’s big chorus and polished arrangement.
And to be fair, the rest of the album pretty much mixes those three styles to varying degrees as it evolves, leaning mostly towards riffy, chunky Heavy Metal. Personally, I enjoy the band the most in their more Power Metal moments, it really suits their sound, but as this album is indeed good and varied there will be something in just about every track to get your teeth into if you are a fan of Melodic Heavy/Power Metal from the last 20 years or so right through to classic Metal from double that. You do have to like a classic mid-to high clean vocal of course which is utilized to good effect throughout, though at times they might benefit from the album having a slightly fuller production to further back the vocals up. On the whole though this is a fun release, packed with sparkling guitar-work, musically varied (there’s that word again..) and brimming with well arranged Melodic Metal. Crimson Fire have the genesis of a really interesting approach to the genre, hopefully the band won’t have to wait another five years to build further on it.
(7/10 Andy Barker)
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