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by Sebastian Kluth

Still Rocking Out Strongly with an Enthusiastic Mindset - A Review of Bonfire's Higher Ground

Still Rocking Out Strongly with an Enthusiastic Mindset - A Review of Bonfire's Higher Ground

While mellow heavy metal bands such as Axxis claim to be legends, German quintet Bonfire actually deserves to be called this way. If we combine the years when the band has been active under the Cacumen banner as well as under the Bonfire name, then the group has now been around for an impressive fifty-three years. Higher Ground is the group's incredible twenty-seventh record and the band around sixty-six year old founding guitarist Johann Ziller has tried out a lot of things in its career such as a record with German lyrics with Freudenfeuer, rock opera The Räuber based upon the dramatic play The Robbers by legendary playwright Friedrich Schiller, a double cover album entitled Legends and an almost completely unplugged double album called Roots. The band is however most known for its mixture of melodic heavy metal and energetic hard rock inspired by the music from the seventies and eighties in particular.

The band seemed to be running out of steam on a few occasions in the recent and distant past but has always managed to somehow come back and deliver decent to very good albums. Higher Ground can be classified somewhere in between these descriptions and deserves to be called a good rock album. Other than guitarist Johann Ziller, this record features American bassist Ronnie Parkes who was once a member of heavy and power metal band Seven Witches, German guitarist and backing vocalist Frank Pané who has already played for underrated progressive power metal group Valley's Eve, Italian drummer Fabio Alessandrini who is most known for his performances with Canadian thrash metal giants Annihilator and Greek singer Kostas Matziaris who has moved to England, now calls himself Dyan Mair and might be known as the guitarist and singer of heavy and power metal band AngelMora.

Even though this eclectic line-up might feel a little bit risky at first discovery, the chemistry of the five musicians that have been working together for less than three years is actually harmonious, inspired and tight on Higher Ground. An immediate proof is first single "I Died Tonight" that actually indicates the opposite of its title and sounds refreshingly dedicated, energetic and juvenile. Second single "I Will Rise" similarly opens this record with a bang and offers everything fans of melodic metal and rock music might be craving for from melodic guitar sounds over pumping bass guitar passages and diversified drum patterns to liberating clean vocals. These two singles truly underline that Bonfire has kept the spirit of its origins and sounds fresher than what much younger melodic heavy metal bands have recently been coming around with.

This album also features a few very good deep cuts such as power ballad "When Love Comes Down" that is a heartfelt ballad for about one minute before evolving into an epic hard rock stomper for four liberating minutes. "Fallin'" goes straight back to the eighties and offers a melodic mixture somewhere between commercially inspired heavy metal and so-called adult-oriented rock that sounds like a combination of Mötley Crüe and Warlock. Even the new version of the band's very own "Rock'n'Roll Survivor (2024 Version)" that starts on a weird retro pop tone eventually successfully invites to bang your head, raise your fist and shake your hips.

Bonfire's Higher Ground might not be an excellent hard rock and heavy metal album and certainly repeats some genre tropes from the seventies and eighties. However, the quintet simply plays the music it knows, loves and respects most and  delivers the goods in this regard. The quintet's incredible twenty-seventh regular studio album gets a heartfelt recommendation for elderly fans of metal and rock music from the seventies and eighties and younger enthusiasts who can wholeheartedly identify with these genres.

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