Valkyrian Music

Letters From The Fire
Worth The Pain
Released 17th March 2017
Hard Rock
Released via Sand Hill Records/ Cargo Records

‘Worth The Pain’ is the debut album from the American hard rock band Letters From The Fire. The band originally started out under a different name before changing it to Letters From The Fire in 2012. Since then they have released two EPs and gone through various line-up changes. This new release was produced by Kile Odell (Motionless in White, Failure Anthem).

I have to admit that I had some alarm bells ringing in my head at the mention of anything connected to Motionless in White. ‘Oh no,no… please don’t let this be metalcore!!’. Luckily, right from the first guitar of the opening track it soon became evident that I had nothing to fear. The opener Perfect Life is a good way to start the album with a mixture of melodic hard rock with some groove metal tinges in the guitars combined with Alexa Kabazie’s powerful vocals. So far so good… Mother Misery gives the listener a good indication of the singer’s vocal range as well as demonstrating just how well she is able to match her singing to the speed of the guitars.

Whether the song is melodic or aggressive, Kabazie is able to pour all emotion into her vocals, adding more emphasis to the lyrics. The slower-paced ballad Bruised is a good example of the band’s softer, more melodic side. In that particular track, the vocals have a certain sombre tone to them. Similar things can be said about At War, in which the guitars are shoved to a backseat replaced by a piano in the foreground accompanying the vocals. Then it’s back to the harsher, heavier and guitar-dominated hard rock from Control until the end of the album.

Overall, despite what the title might suggest, there is nothing painful about listening to this album. In fact I actually enjoyed it. At first, Letters from The Fire reminded me of Evanescence minus the Gothic elements. It’s primarily hard rock with little hints of groove metal and even pop music. 4/5

Iza Raittila

This entry was posted on 6th March 2017 at 11:59 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Hard rock. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.