Review: Saxon “Hell, Fire and Damnation”

Let's get one thing straight, folks. Somethings really do get better with age. Wine, scotch, Sylvester Stallone movies...and the music of Saxon. These titans of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal are back at it with their newest single, which is the title track of their forthcoming album.
Entitled "Hell, Fire and Damnation," this crushing metallic anthem shows that when it comes to creating amazing Heavy Metal, age is not a barrier. Ever since 1978, when Saxon frist blessed us with their music with their self titled release, these Northern Englishmen have built upon their legacy. In a word, the song is killer. It opens with a riff that sounds like it was pulled directly from the berserker playbook. The drums pound like the hammer of Thor and Biff is singing better than ever.
The band is sometimes unfairly compaired to their compatriots, Iron Maiden. Aside from coming up from the same scene, The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), the two bands took very different paths. Maiden, not only became the biggest British Heavy Metal band in the world, they evolved into an amazing progressive metal band. Saxon, after shedding their brief firtation with the AOR sound, have become heavier, harder, and faster with each subsequent release. Last year's, stellar, "Carpe Diem," and its predessecor "Battering Ram" were fury personified.
While the entirety of the Saxon catalogue has records that feel more like missteps than others, each one should be sitting proudly on the shelves of every metalheads' record collection. And this forthcoming release is going to be a welcome addition.