review by: Laurent Martini

All of Iron Fire's promos describe the band as Power Metal and unfortunately the Danish quintet tries too hard to live up to that image. On The Edge's best tracks are more Pop Metal (think Europe) and it is when the band decides not to fight their obvious musical direction that the album truly shines.

The album starts out a bit too over the top and melodramatic with ominously sounding bells and hollow winds and with titles like "Prince of Agony," "Into The Abyss" and "Forever Evil," one can tell that the band is trying too hard to be dark and malicious. On those songs, the music is not only flat but also sounds like a bland cover of musical styles successfully accomplished better by less talented bands. It is only when Iron Fire accepts what they are, Pop Metal, that the album takes off. On tracks like Thunderspirit" and "Miracle" all of the elements of great musicianship, focused lyrics, memorable melodies, and originality come together perfectly. These are songs that you'll not only remember but want to listen to again and again until you figure out how to play them in order to impress your friends.

The most frustrating part of the whole album is that throughout most of the songs the musicianship is quite good yet come the chorus, the band seems to revert back to two chords, heavy grunts, and silly rhymes. Let's admit it kids, rhyming "true and you," "rain and pain," and "fun and run" is something that Wilson Phillips was proud to do.

All around, the music is definitely polished. With guitarists Kristian Hegelund and Martin Slott feeding off each other perfectly with original licks and almost pop catchy melodies and with lead singer Martin Steene's voice a cross between Sebastian Bach at his best and Joe Belladonna at his fiercest, Iron Fire has all the tools needed to rock and rock hard. I only hope that the band matures enough to disregard what the ad department at Noise Records has decided to market them as.