http://www.rockreport.be/

Divinefire is a new ‘power trio’ that was founded by Jani Stefanovic and Christian Rivel (Narnia, Audiovision) a year ago. Together they wrote a bunch of songs and recorded them in no less than five different studios. As Divinefire doesn’t have a permanent lead guitarist in its line-up, famous people like Torbjörn Weinesjö, Pontus Norgren and Carl Johann Grimmark were invited to play those lead parts and the result is splendid. Other guest musicians include Eric Clayton (some spoken parts), Fredrik Sjöholm (lead vocals on tracks 4 and 8), Hubertus Liljegren (growling vocals on tracks 2 and 8) and Thomas Vikström (backing vocals).

Don’t expect weekday metal from these guys! Oh no! What they present here, can be described as fast - sometimes even brutal – metal, to be compared with a Rhapsody on speed. But what gives their metal an extra shot, is the injection of a serious dose of neo-classical and progressive elements. Admitted, I don’t like the growls in some of the songs, but anyone who loves his (her) metal right in the face, won’t complain about that. Listening tip: “Pay It Forward”, the ‘quietest’ song on offer with brilliant vocals from Rivel (owner of Rivel Records) and brilliant axework from Carl Johann Grimmark! Together with Audiovision, Divinefire is a band of which great things might follow…

(CL)
 

http://melodic.net/

Swedish Rivel Records is one of the busyiest labels around right now with many releases. The man behind Rivel Records is the former Narnia singer Christian Rivel. Christian is a busy man right now with this release and the brilliant debut album with Audiovision. This project includes also Jani Stefanovic and Andreas Olsson that forms Divinefire.

As on the Audiovision Mr. Rivel has gathered some special guests to play on the album such as Pontus Norgren and Thomas Vikstrom to name two of them.

This is very well-produced heavy powermetal with touch of symphonic/neoclassic dark metal but still very melodic. Personally I´m not a bigger fan of this kind of powermetal were the drums are played fast as hell and I think in the long run the pounding drums are sound annoying. One thing that I was impressed with this album was the harmonies and background vocal arrangements that are really done with nicely and with power. This is something that you should check out if your into fast and heavy stuff like Heavenly, Dragonforce and Rhapsody then this is definitely a album for you. Christian sings very good like he did on the Audiovision album.

So fasten your seatbealts and prepare yourself for a heavy journey in the land of symphonic/neoclassic powermetal.