Stephen After two surprisingly infectious melodic rock albums, Brother Firetribe launched a CD/DVD package of their recorded performance in 2009, in front of their hometown crowd at Apollo, Helsinki. This release caught me off guard as I rarely see a band will have a live album released in only two years after their debut, not to say that this is basically a side project of Nightwish's Vuorinen and Leverage's Ansio.

Seeing how the band performed a tight set of the greatest songs from "False Metal" and "Heart Full of Fire" flawlessly with a captured atmosphere of intimate interaction between the band and the Finnish audience is convincing enough to claim this as the best live album of the decade. Pekka Ansio snatched every difficult note in each song perfectly, but I understand how this effort absorbed a lot of his energy as I can feel he sounds exhausted in couple of songs. Vuorinen also delivered a super play that it's hard to tell the difference between "Live at Apollo" and the studio albums.

However, this came into another problem that it lacks of huge improvisation that's often found in another spectacular live albums, say Guns N' Roses' "Live Era" or Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won". Some lengthy solos, medleys, or some covers are required to spice up the album. I will also see this will be much more interesting if they include a Nightwish or Leverage song that's done in BF style, but the appearance of Annete Olson in "Heart Full of Fire" is refreshing and a gap-filler. Ansio should also lead the crowd frequently to assemble a giant choir to give the listeners a goosebump moment when the chorus of "One Single Breath" or Wildest Dreams" exploded.

Brother Firetribe is on top of their game here, definitely a strong buy for the fans and also can be a good 'greatest hits' starter for those who want to experience a fine combo of delicate AOR and melodic metal for the very first time.

arcane-beautiful The only reason I bought this album is because I like Nightiwsh. And Emppu is on it, and Annete makes a guest appearance.

The idea of this band sounds a bit stupid, basically playing a style of music, that a friend of mine actually labelled a genre for, and that is FIST! In fact I was in a band called FIST and music like this was our main agenda.

Now, is the album anygood. Actually it is, it's not great, at times you almost blush urself to death, but some of the songs are...pretty damn amazing.

I feel like cutting off all my limbs for saying this, but it's true, and I'm a martyr for FIST!

1. Who Will You Run To Now? - Great start. Good chorus and catchy melodies. 10/10

2. Wildest Dreams - Pure cheese and first. Classic song. 10/10

3. Runaways - Thr chorus is pure cheese. So damn good. 10/10

4. Game They Call Love - They always mention either love or heart...maybe their nymphomaniacs? More of a hard rocking album track full of clichés. Chorus has a X Japan vibe to it. 9/10

5. Play It From The Heart - The cheesy ballad. 8/10

6. Heart Full Of Fire - Very sexy. So Eurovision. 9/10

7. Heard It On My Radio - Good chorus. Bit too cliché tho. 8/10

8. Going Out With A Bang - Great chorus. Very rocking. 9/10

9. Out Of My Head - One of the most unique songs with the best chorus on the album. 10/10

10. Chasing The Angels - Good cover from the Ghostbusters guy. 8/10

11. I Am Rock - It's just stupid. 6/10

CONCLUSION: If you want some cheese and beef, this is perfect for you.

Stephen Formed by Erno “Emppu” Vuorinen, the guitarist of Nightwish, Brother Firetribe was built for the AOR market, though somehow they're heavier than they should be. "False Metal" (or "Break Out" in Japanese release) is the classy melodic rock debut of 2006 that's powerfully beautiful. Check out some monstrous well-written tracks such as "Valerie" that sounded distortingly sweet, this is the kind of track that if popularized in the mid 80s, alongside with other commercial hits, "One Single Breath" and "Love Goes Down". These type of songs should have awarded them several platinums. Most songs here were polished with an amazing giant chorus and smoothed out with killer solos and impeccable keyboard synth. Listen to "Midnite Queen", "Lover Tonite", or the Cheap Trick's "Mighty Wings", they totally bring back the glory days of arena rock.

Brother Firetribe is like a Finnish answer to Swedish' The Poodles and Norway's Wig Wam, but somehow each of them sounded differently though they were all rooted to the classic sound of 80s rock. Imagine Nightwish's symphonic flair, Van Halen's synthesized opus, and Journey's magnificent melody, and you'll get the idea of how Brother Firetribe sounded. An impressive and flawless album!