Album Review: Spirits Of Fire - Spirits Of Fire

As a critic, one of the hardest things I have to deal with is the question of fairness. I try my best to go into every record I listen to with open ears, optimistic the music will be good, and ready to look for the positive side. I have to write negative reviews, but I don't want to. I would love it if every record was at least good, but that is impossible, and I also get accused of having standards that are too high. Fairness is even harder when a band like Spirits Of Fire comes along. How does one be fair to a record when you know without hearing a note it won't be good?

The combination of Ripper Owens and Chris Caffery is one that told me everything I needed to know before I listened to the music. Ripper has been in a string of bands, and has never shown any ability to write a memorable song. Caffery is known from his time playing Jon Oliva's songs in Savatage as they were taking on water, and then has spent most of the time since then playing Christmas music on stage, while making records no one knows exists. Combined, this band has no one who has ever written a song I truly enjoy, so the odds of them doing it now was next to zero.

And they haven't beaten them.

Things don't start off well. "Light Speed Marching" wants to be "Painkiller", but it clearly isn't. The production is absolutely awful. Ripper alternates between being buried in the mix and being so high his track clips. The guitars are sort of heavy, but the main harmony sounds like the Casio keyboard I had in 1989. Considering Roy Z had a hand in this record, I'm shocked. He produced unbelievable albums with Bruce Dickinson, and now he's turning out something like this that sounds as if it was recorded in a bedroom studio.

The big problem, though, is exactly what I knew it would be; the songwriting isn't very good. Caffery comes up with a riff or two that are decent, but Ripper doesn't offer up a single melody on this entire record I would want to remember, even if I could. As time has gone by, and his time in Judas Priest has been all but erased, he seems hell-bent on reclaiming it. That means he forgoes actually singing, which he can do well, and instead apes Halford at every turn. Most of his lines here are barked staccato rhythms, or high-pitched wailing. His time with Iced Earth proved he's a good vocalist when he's given the right material, and the rest of his career proves he doesn't have the ability to give it to himself, or pick the right people to provide it for him.

The only appeal of this record is if you are such a die-hard Judas Priest fan that you miss the days of "Jugulator". Like that record, this one is a miscalculation that doesn't play to anyone's strengths, and thinks being heavy is a substitute for knowing what you're doing. Yes, this record is heavy, but it's heavy in the sense it sounds like someone cranked the volume too loud, and you're suffering from mild hearing loss. I don't want to be harsh, but the sound of the record is simply unacceptable. I have heard far, far, far better productions that have come from a laptop.

Even if the sonics were better, Spirits Of Fire don't have anything to say. They are recycling a sound that plenty of others already do, and do much better. This might sound mean, but there's a reason why both Ripper and Caffery had the time available to put this group together.

The most interesting thing about this record is the competition it creates. Ripper has already been part of The Three Tremors, which was an awful and unlistenable album this year. Now, in just two months, he has probably landed two records on the eventual list of the worst of the year. That's actually rather impressive. And it will likely be the only reason I remember this record exists. Seriously, please do yourself a favor and avoid this.