We venture where most would flee or fall as the hammering within Hephaestus’ forge beckons, all warriors driven toward the scalding challenge of Orodruin as Chicago, Illinois-based epic heavy metal quartet FER DE LANCE lead, unmooring their ships and setting out on their second grand voyage. Building upon the icy sea-bound and stellarly-charted sojourn of their debut this sophomore full-length album brings a deepened sense of wide-open spaces via their emphasis upon soaring melodies and classics inspired loft. ‘Fires on the Mountainside‘ could be viewed as iteration in some sense, an act just as grand in scope and expression as the band’s first, though I’d consider it an even more representative of their fusion of oaken and epic forms which sidles next to vikingr/folken sounds while sometimes reaching for power-metallic bounding in the midst of their march through mythic realms.

Fer De Lance have been playing what I’d consider epic “Bathory metal” of a certain era since about 2019 as vocalist/guitarist M.P. and bassist Rüsty arrived upon the song “Colossus” in the process of workshopping ideas for their power/speed metal group Moros Nyx before soon realizing the piece deserved its own band, a separate entity. As it turned out they had a sublime knack for epic heavy metal with elements of folk metal and maybe even some power metal in its DNA as their first EP (‘Colossus‘, 2020) hit and left folks cowering across the land. I’d described their rendition of epic heavy metal several different ways in review of their debut LP (‘The Hyperborean‘, 2022) but the original idea resembles something like the Forlorn era of Ereb Altor to some degree. Their sound is not akin to the doom metal of a group like DoomSword but manages to sound relevant to that said cause, carrying the spiritus of earlier Atlantean Kodex and even some 70’s adventure metal in their work. With that said all bands mentioned owe their foundations and perhaps the basis of several defining melodies to the “viking” side of Bathory and this of course is the main reason I’m back to check out this new record beyond the quality of the last.

‘Fires on the Mountainside‘ isn’t limited to the eldest oak in carving its vessel, though, as this territory is also conducive to Scandinavian folk metal and it’s sometimes quasi-blackened edge when called for. This is more an observable factor of shared influence and less a matter of pulling from Swedish folk metal or whatever else. Fer De Lance remain an epic heavy metal band who’re characterized by the soar of their vocals and mid-paced, often hymnally struck dramatism and on this album we’ll find an emphasis upon lead guitar driven melodies and a tempo map which suggests broader inspiration imbued. This means a fan of say, Sons of Crom, will understand this record just as well as a casual Falkenbach enjoyer even if we might not call this band viking or folk metal outright, though you might want to consider power metal as a secondary tag with the vocals in mind. While I’d say the thirteen minute opener/title track (“Fires on the Mountainside”) communicates this level of stylistic nuance well enough the slightly more power-metallic trample of “Ravens Fly (Dreams of Daidalos)” should be an ideal point of entry for these suggested traits, demonstrating how the band’s work ends up sounding in league with -many- things yet far separated from anything else one could consider similar by direct comparison.

The major success of this second Fer De Lance album from my point of view is essentially replicating the dramatism of the previous LP without plainest iteration, trimming back some of its excess in the process. It is clear enough they’re telling a different set of stories and that they’ve made some changes in the interim but you’re ultimately getting a direct continuation of the thread that’d been there since 2020 and refined in 2022. With that said it is clear they’re aiming for songs which carry the vibe through while bringing in a broader variety of sounds. At some point they even go as far as reaching for the ultimate sin of wah pedal effects to help distinguish some of the later-on pieces (“Children of Sky and Sea”) and this standout moment feels like something bigger than before yet it is the roughened vocals and doomed stride found on “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” that serves the most clear indicator of a troupe reaching outside of bounds and making better heavy metal for it.

The real power of ‘Fires on the Mountainside‘ comes in bursts as I’d found certain songs were hit-or-miss depending on the energy they’d brought. There isn’t a more classic grimed-over heavy metal drawl on the record than the intro to “The Feast of Echoes” as its slow-charged gallop is given momentum by way of organesque keys and slow-motion Manowar riffs abounding. The escalation of the pace mid-song for the sake of some extra shredding, the rising turn of the chorus, the spoken word declarations, many a detail help this ‘old school’ heavy metal kicker warm to a central point of congress on the second half of the full listen. That said the aforementioned “Child of the Sky and Sea” is the great balancer, a song which brings the grandeur of the opener back into view and gilds the album with one of its finer anthemic stances. What Fer De Lance lose in terms of focus on this record they gain in variety and the trade is fair enough for my own taste.

It is a feat in and of itself to have managed anything which stands up to the imposing first impression the title track makes but thankfully this album is reasonably consistent in its voice serving obviate standouts front to back here, even if “Fire/Gold” and “Tempest Stele” seem somewhat cursory at a glance. Even those songs reflect an album reaching for variety, flexing some new found capability, and benefitting from some slight restructuring which allows for bigger dual lead action and enhanced vocal presence; Though I wouldn’t say this album takes anything away from the enthralling realm of ‘The Hyperborean‘ and doesn’t over it it per my own taste there is yet a sense that Fer De Lance‘ve cut the fat a bit, found some bigger impact in broader gestures which recreate some of their past work’s weightier profundity. At the end of the day ‘Fires on the Mountainside‘ is an album likely to charm the sensibilities of many an ear while still reflecting the most core impact of epic heavy metal and in that sense it was a pleasure to sit with as a fine continuation of their quick-to-rise, somewhat unique mastery of the form. A moderately high recommendation.

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