Phantom Fire Self-Titled Review
This is one of those records, the kind you spend your whole damned life hoping to trip over. And wouldn’t you know it… I finally found this absolute sonic chainsaw of a band, Phantom Fire, and guess what? They’ve already been lurking in the shadows, three deep into their discography like specters with Marshall stacks strapped to their backs. And the scene has been dead silent. Not a whisper. Not a screech. Not even a dislocated jawbone rattling in the wind. Where the hell are you people!?
Let’s break it down: Phantom Fire is a 3-piece Norwegian weapon designed in the frostbitten dungeons of the old gods. The members are veterans from Gaahl’s Wyrd, Hellbutcher, and fuckin’ Enslaved. That’s not a resume; that’s a war crime waiting to be committed on tape. And yet, instead of following the well-worn goat-trail of corpsepaint clichés and blastbeat predictability, these maniacs come at you with Blackened Melodic Thrash laced with gasoline-drenched Rock N’ Roll and just enough NWOBHM worship to get the juices flowing.
It’s Motörhead in a knife fight with Dissection, using Venom’s bones as drumsticks and Maiden’s gallop as the getaway car. Imagine Witchery and The Haunted tearing donuts in a cemetery while Satan DJ’s. That’s the vibe.
And you know what, it’s criminal that nobody is screaming about this band. I mean, what the actual fuck, Metal community? Have we gotten so obsessed with being the most "Kvlt" that we forgot how to feel something again? Did you lose your spine in a record store bargain bin? Did your soul get buried under some poorly xeroxed demo tape from a band that only plays once a decade when Mercury is in retrograde? Wake the fuck up!
I’m from the school of If it’s good, it’s good. I don’t care if the band was raised by sewer mutants under a bridge or recorded their album on a haunted answering machine, if it rips, it rides. And Phantom Fire rips like a demonic Harley wheelie-ing into the abyss.
The self-titled beast is a 10-song death ride fueled by brimstone riffs and vocals that growl like a man possessed but never lost in the mix. You understand the rage, the hunger, the vibe, it’s Black Metal, but with hooks. With purpose. With pavement-scorching intent. You can smell the engine grease and burnt leather in these tracks.
This album wasn’t tossed off in a meth-fueled garage session either, this is immaculate production, razor sharp, with all the polish of a seasoned hitman’s blade. I’ve heard major label output this year that sounds like it was recorded inside a dying goat. This is crystal-clear carnage.
And the feel of the record - it’s built for motion. This is the soundtrack to a blood moon road trip through a world gone to hell, your grip on the wheel white-knuckled, your girl riding shotgun, your enemies shrinking in the rearview as the amps howl louder than the sirens behind you. It’s the spirit of danger. Of freedom. Of living like the laws of gravity and man no longer apply.
Standout tracks: All of them. But if you want a taste before diving in headfirst:
“All For None” – Burn-your-house-down energy.
“Fatal Attraction” – Straight from the twisted lovechild of Lemmy and a Scandinavian warlock.
“Eternal Void” – Sounds like your soul being sucked into a V8 engine.
“Sleep To Die” – An anthem for the damned.
“My Crown” – Because kings bleed too, and this one bleeds fire.
If this record doesn’t make you want to throw a Molotov into the sunrise and scream at the gods until they answer, check your pulse. You might be dead. Or worse… listening to radio rock.