Reviews list for Black Viper - Hellions of Fire (2018)

I wasn’t acquainted with Norway’s Black Viper prior to approaching their sole full-length album as a part of this month's speed metal deep dive. I’d certainly seen their name around the traps but had never seriously considered investigating them further & had no real understanding of what they might offer me. So I guess that’s seen me go into “Hellions of Fire” with no preconceived notions on what I was likely to be presented with & it was a bit of a surprise to discover that they own quite an impressive pedigree in Norwegian metal. Bassist Christoffer Brathan played with thrash metal outfit Condor, drummer Cato Stormoen is the current skinsman for another Norwegian thrash metal staple in Deathhammer while guitarist Arild Myren Torp is a current member of wonderfully talented thrashers Nekromantheon as well as highly regarded death metallers Obliteration so given that they’ve only released the one demo & a single album in their decade-long existence thus far it would seem that Black Viper are a bit of a supergroup side project for several important figures in the local Norwegian scene. Well, if that is in fact the case then they’ve made a pretty good fist of it here as “Hellions of Fire” is a more than respectable effort.

The 48 minute album is made up of seven lengthy tracks that rarely deviate from the relentless pursuit of high velocity metal. For this reason it can appear to be a fairly imposing prospect after the first listen or two & I’d suggest that it could certainly have been shortened a bit in the interest of making for a more palatable package for the average consumer. I mean I’m not sure fun speed metal anthems really need to be over three minutes in length but here we have seven that range from four & a half minutes to an epic ten & a half minutes in duration. That’s not to say that you’ll ever get bored per se as there’s always something exciting transpiring but it can seem like a constant flurry of activity at times with the song-writing seeming to be in an awful hurry for much of the album’s run time.

The modern clarity of the production job gives these tunes added life that the band’s forefathers may not have been blessed with & it’s nice to be able to so easily identify the basslines in the mix. It has to be said that the performances of the three instrumentalists are outstanding too which shouldn’t be any surprise given their credentials. The Destruction influence that is so obvious in Arild Myren Trop’s other band Nekromantheon is just as visible here through the regular inclusion of melodic lead runs within the riffs & that element tends to keep me clear of any genuine tendency to want to reach for comparisons with thrash despite the consistently high tempos. There’s no doubt that this is the style of speed metal that the European power metal movement borrows from so regularly but there’s only really the occasional hint at that genre, particularly on the old demo track “Freedom’s Reign” which I unsurprisingly find to be one of the weaker inclusions on the album. “Quest For Power/The Fountain Of Might” sees Black Viper taking a swing at your more traditional heavy metal sound amidst all the chaos but it’s never long before you find the tremolo-picked speed metal riffage returning to the fold to have you thrashing your limbs around the bedroom again & I’d suggest that “Hellions of Fire” is one of the more pure examples of the genre you’ll find.

There’s a genuine passion to the way Black Viper go about their business as they clearly live for this shit. I’d suggest that I might not have enjoyed their 2016 “Storming With Vengeance” demo though as two of its three tracks are the ones that I don’t get as much enjoyment from here. The band’s real weakness though is in the higher register vocals of Salvador Almijo whose voice isn’t really up to the job in my opinion. He certainly has some pipes on him but he often wanders out of key & his overly flamboyant delivery definitely places a cap on how far the appeal of a record like this one can extend for me personally. Perhaps that’s more of an indicator of my musical preferences than anything else but I don’t tend to think so because I find the rest of Black Viper’s offering to be quite appealing.

I suspect that very few speed metal fans will find Black Viper’s debut album to be a disappointment. It’s a well written, produced & executed example of the genre with a more modern edge to it & it begs the question of why the band haven’t gotten around to following it up. Perhaps it really was just a side-project intended to tick an item off their bucket lists & if that was the case then I'd suggest that it’s been very successful in fulfilling that requirement. I’m just not sure that it’s enough to draw me back for regular revisits though.

For fans of Mystik, Chevalier & Agent Steel.