Final Sign - Hold High The Flame
Going along with my review of Ironflame’s new album, Kingdom Torn Asunder, I picked up another album when I got that album at my local Half Price Books. Before I found Kingdom Torn Asunder, I found a copy of an album called Hold High The Flame by a band called Final Sign. This album is from 2015, so it turned 10 this year, but I wanted to talk about this album because it’s a bit more than merely being fun. Final Sign, for those unaware, is a band from North Carolina that’s composed of a few artists from the region that are pretty important, and they had been talking about making this album since 1999. Due to prior commitments and things getting in the way, it never happened until 2015, and this is the result of that, but this band takes traditional heavy metal and throws a power metal sheen onto it.
I talked about power metal when I talked about Battle Beast’s Bringer Of Pain, and how I’m not a fan of the genre typically, but this band knocks it out of the park. Not only is this album only 38 minutes, but this thing has some crazy guitar solos and bombastic hooks that show up throughout it. The musicianship is top notch on this thing, but that’s about it, really. This is a pretty standard heavy metal album, just with some great musicianship, and that’s okay. I don’t have a ton more to say about this album, but that’s not a bad thing. This album is very good, because it has some great solos throughout it, as well as some good hooks and melodies, but it’s also nothing you haven’t heard before, either. It’s worth checking out if you enjoy traditional heavy metal, as well as power metal, but I can see people that maybe aren’t into those styles of metal not being into it.
