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Bonfire: Higher Ground
Bonfire - Higher Ground Album Art

Bonfire: Higher Ground

Hard & Heavy Metal Rock
4.0/5.0

Official Facebook X Instagram
Frontiers Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 21.01.2025 | Released: 24.01.2025

Approaching nearly four decades in the business, and still led by guitarist and founding member Hans Ziller, legendary German band Bonfire returns with their nineteenth studio album, Higher Ground. This was preceded by their "almost unplugged album" Roots, in 2021. A year later Bonfire would acquire two new members: vocalist Dyan Mair (AngelMora) and drummer Fabio Alessandrini (Annihilator, Enemy Eyes, Metal Order, et al). With whom Bonfire would release re-recordings of their first three early and popular albums: Don't Touch the Light MMXXIII, Fireworks MMXXIII, and Point Blank MMXXIII. With Higher Ground, Bonfire joins the Frontiers Music stable.

Bonfire - Click For Larger Image

Bonfire

After several spins, Higher Ground seems to find Bonfire taking a more aggressive path, more heavy metal rock, perhaps even some nuances of power metal. Ziller comments: The new Bonfire album is a masterpiece. Bonfire has reinvented themselves with Higher Ground, never neglecting their virtues - fat hard guitars, incredible solos, great choir passages and stirring vocals. The band plays as one and is at its best.


Speaking to a few songs, that power metal feeling arrives with Jealousy, perhaps with I Will Rise, and definitely with Lost All Control. Within those last two songs Mair has some rather raw, aggressive, and nearly screamo vocals. Yet most songs turn on heavy metal infused with a solid rock groove, such as I Died Tonight, Fallin', and Higher Ground. Alternatively, Come Hell Or High Water is simply heavy and plodding, notable from the rhythm section, and again with Mair's intense vocals. He chills out on the power ballad When Love Comes Down. The album closes with a re-recording of Rock N Roll Survivors from 2020's Fistful Of Fire.

All in, with Higher Ground, the legendary Bonfire seems to be taking a more aggressive approach to their music: more hard and heavy metal with some power metal twists thrown in and the addition of more assertive vocals. Tough stuff. Recommended.



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The Take Away

With Higher Ground, the legendary Bonfire seems to be taking a more aggressive approach to their music: more hard and heavy metal with some power metal twists thrown in and the addition of more assertive vocals. Tough stuff. Recommended.

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