POWER Metal with a Progressive side features with a lineup of guys with impressive resumes. They guys reside in the UK and USA and musically the talent is amazing.
Guitarist Paul Wright (Deezl, Exocet) and drummer Tom Schofield (Soil) and added vocalist David Reed Watson (Kill Ritual) and bassist Felipe Kopke (For Ophelia’s Death). Together they have put together an aggressive piece of work.
Tom Schofield’s drumming is like machine guns and cannons. Wright’s guitars are in “attack” mode as well. There’s great harmonizing and killer breakdowns. It’s all here, the band is magnificent.
Where I will take issue with is the production done by Ulrich Wild and mastering by Alex Psaroudakis. I’m in radio production so I use headphone to get a “true” sound, that’s what I generally use to listen to music for review. I have to say the production was pretty aggressive, the vocals were buried a bit and the guitars were a little distorted. There wasn’t a lot of separation, it was more like a wall of sound.
Now, I’m NOT a professional produce and I’ve never produced a band, but I’ve been listening to Metal for 40 years and I’ve heard thousands of albums being in radio. This is certainly not the worst I’ve every heard, and it sounded better on out studio monitors, but I think these guys deserved a little bit better mix.
Having said that, it should NOT be a deterrent from picking this one up, in fact there might be some people who like this style. Personally I think it’s a style of production better served for Thrash Metal than Prog Metal that relies more on melodies and harmonies.
Song-wise, there’s some great stuff here. ‘Modern Here’, ‘Warrior’, ‘What You Say” were my favorite three, but the songs are all strong. As I mentioned early, there’s no lack of talent, in fact they can hang with anyone out there for sure. I really hope they continue to record, they really have something strong to offer to the Power Prog genre.
Alchemy Fire Band Line-Up:
Paul Wright – Lead / Rhythm Guitars (Deezl, Exocet)
Tom Schofield – Drums (Soil, Oppressor)
David Reed Watson – Vocals (Kill Ritual, DNA)
Felipe Kopke – Bass (For Ophelia’s Death)
Alchemy Fire – “Alchemy Fire” Track-List:
- Alchemy
- Modern Hero
- Dust from Bone
- S.D.R.
- I Am Your Sorrow
- Native Son
- What You Say
- Warrior
- Iconoclast
For the latest Alchemy Fire news, visit their official website and social media sites at the following locations:
Official Alchemy Fire Facebook page
Official Alchemy Fire Instagram page
Official Alchemy Fire Twitter page
Official Alchemy Fire YouTube channel
Official QUMRAN Records website
Biography
Alchemy Fire is a progressive heavy metal band founded in 2018 by Nottingham UK based lead guitarist and songwriter, Paul Wright. With its members located in the UK and USA, this international band attributes influences such as Iron Maiden, Helloween, Queensryche and Judas Priest to name a few.
Through an acquaintance, Paul Wright was introduced to Tom Schofield. This introduction led to the collaboration and recording of guitar and drum scratch tracks. David Reed Watson accepted the invitation as vocalist and together with Paul Wright worked on lyrics and harmonies for this upcoming album.
Using guest musicians for bass and keyboard, the band’s album was recorded at Monster Trax Studio in Newark/Nottingham UK by accomplished musician/guitarist, Composer and Producer Misha Nikolic (Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash). Grammy nominated, multi-platinum Producer and Mixer, Ulrich Wild, well-known for his work with bands such as Dethklok, Pantera, Static-X, White Zombie, Deftones and Breaking Benjamin, mixed and recorded the album at his LA studio, The Wilderness. Mastering was done by NYC based Grammy winning and multi-platinum awarded Mastering Engineer, Alex Psaroudakis.
With the musical precision and talent of the band, along with the high-level engineering and production backgrounds involved, the album will hit you with a heavy metal wall of sound containing progressive elements. Soaring vocals and harmonies with atmospheric keyboards are backed by thunderous drumming and heavy bass tones to give the listener a balanced mix of fast to mid-paced guitar shredding songs.
