Hammerfall

One Crimson Night (Nuclear Blast)
by Martin Popoff

Offering everything you’d want out of a live album, Hammerfall make this thing look and sound like Live After Death, stuffing the book full of very professional live shots and more casual backstage/travel shots, stacked upon two CDs of punchy recordings from the band’s controversial but glory-bound back catalogue. The set is spirited throughout, quite the feat given that it’s the product of one show in the band’s hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden (hear Joacim talk a lot in Swedish and also English). As a bonus, there are three tracks recorded in Chile and Mexico, and as a not so bonus, an awful bass solo. But the production is incredible, the band achieving a perfect mix of themselves and crowd, the best I’ve ever heard in that respect, the crowd sounding like part of the rhythm section, making each anthem sound like the work of a slushing, sloshing, headbanging army. For those somewhat unconvinced of Hammerfall’s schtick (i.e. me), this is most definitely the best way to dig into the band’s storm of hails, simply because the golden hall-filled enthusiasm rent asunder by a brotherhood of sun and steel seems to create a synergistic effect that warms the cockles. Note: Pretty cool cover, too. I believe one of the first that drags the punters time-travel-like into one of these dumb-ass moat metal paintings.
(2323 W. El Segundo Blvd. Hawthorne, CA 90250)