“Chorus-driven,” these are the first words that come to my mind as I listened to this EP. HoS clearly have being catchy as one of their goals, and they’re doing their damn best to achieve it. They produce a blend of heavy rock and heavy metal, quite reminiscent of classic bands like Samson and Judas Priest (sans the falsetto), as well as of more recent performers like Airbourne.
Although melodically the songs are good enough to get your feet tapping, they fail to achieve much more than that. Sure, they sound like rock hits (all the ingredients seem to be there, like the face-melting-lite solo in “In For the Night”), but they are just incredibly boring. Martin’s voice, while competent, quickly becomes annoying as he continues to repeat the same choruses over and over again (I mean, I had to stop “In For the Night” because of how irrationally angry it was making me to hear him yell the same fucking phrase again and again). There are some singers who can manage to do that without making you reach for the nearest Glock (I’m looking at you, Brian Johnson), but Martin just isn’t one of them. He’s competent enough for his local club, and can definitely kick ass at karaoke, but I just can’t see him going much farther than that in that capacity.
Mountain of Fire is a rather competent album in terms of music and melody, but which cannot overcome the fact that the singer doesn’t live up to the band. Although it’s true that are very cookie-cutter in their structure, they achieve their purpose. Sadly, it’s just too damn boring for me to come back to them.