Kev Rowland
Apparently this album has been put together from “long lost tapes”, and although it doesn’t say so on the cover the bulk of the material stems from their 1998 performance at the Wacken festival (on top of the 11 songs from there, there are an additional six songs including some previously unreleased material). So, there is some rare stuff here and there is no doubt that it will appeal to hardcore fans, but in truth it is really only them that will want to get this album anyway (also available in vinyl!). Even though I am sure that there has been a great deal of work undertaken on the sound, the levels aren’t as good as they could be, and the guitars are way too low in the mix. Any band that also performs a cover of “The Stroke” should be taken out and shot at dawn as it has to be one of the worst tongue in cheek songs of all time.
If you can’t live without everything that Bonfire has released then be happy that this is out there, but if like me you can do quite well without them then pass this one by. The guys do have a really good website (although the album listing hasn’t been updated to include this one), which can be found at www.bonfire.de