Band:	Firebrand Super Rock
Album:	Firebrand Super Rock
Style:	Hard rock, Heavy metal
Release date:	April 2011

01. River Of The Dead
02. Into The Black
03. Wheel Of Pain
04. Iron Void
05. The Unborn
06. Hells Mouth
07. Beneath The Nameless City
08. Falling Down
09. Born To Die
10. Cleansed By Fire

Firebrand Super Rock? Man, has every decent band name been already thought of? They are really not doing themselves any favours with a name that sounds like it's from some sort of Japanese cartoon. On the other hand, the music is quite listenable, go figure.

The truly odd thing about this band though is the lady singer. Nothing odd about it at all, in fact, which is what makes it so odd. They haven't turned a female presence into some selling point. Hell, it's barely even mentioned in the press release. Are they even allowed to do that? Well, the whole thing is satisfyingly seamless. It's got a pretty familiar sound of NWOBHM mixed with a few traditional doom touches, played with a few Down-esque sludgy rock n roll sensibilities, all topped off with some smokey baritone vocals that soar like power metal vocals yet have the beefy depth of traditional heavy metal.

Firebrand Super Rock are quite visibly a well-oiled machine. The sound is focused on a precise direction which they execute quite well. The only real problem is how safe this sounds. If they only dirtied their sound up a bit, maybe added some sludgier bass tones here and there they would have something very special. I hear a top-notch sludge/stoner band hiding behind some fairly bland hard rock songs - they hint toward that sound sporadically throughout the album, but these moments are too few and far between. Thankfully this is only a debut, hopefully we'll see them take more risks with their music in the future.