HEAVENS FIRE, Judgement Day

Heavens Fire

Complicated is the history of this Canadian band, initially known as Arsin, who has been through some bad times before getting to put together the pieces of their dreams of glory and produce this tumultuous and monumental hard rock album. They used to be a trio of melodic progressive rock, that shyly reached the audience with a disc called ‘The Outside’ (published in 2000 by Now & Then Records), but in 2013 band’s shredding master JT Harris- real name, Jim Theoharis – finally pulled out the claws of his talent and a masterpiece was materialized. Twelve overwhelming and suggestive tracks, possessed by the vocal feats of former Harem Scarem Darren James Smith, who delivers a stunning performance, with his corpulent and fleshy voice between David Lee Roth, Paul Stanley, Benny Mardones and Brad Sinsel (TKO/War Babies). To all the rest, there are the Lynchianisms by Harris’ ESP guitar to make us imagine that this is a Dokken album, but played with the provocative verve of early Van Halen, especially the ‘Fair Warning’ era. An album released almost a year now but already definable as a remarkable 21st century classic.

A dedication also goes up in heaven to former component of HF, drummer Mike Mackinnon, who prematurely died after the release of the first disk. Rip.