A lot of people laugh at HammerFall – some of them even relatives of mine- but I’m willing to bet a pound to a pinch of the proverbial that, if put under extreme pressure, they’d fail miserably to come up with an opening brace of songs for an album as good – hell, as downright exciting – as the band did with Riders Of The Storm and Hearts on Fire, the pair of belters that announce the presence of Joacim Cans and company’s fourth full-lengther, Crimson Thunder...

And anyway, who is writing about what those naysayers were up to two whole decades ago? I’ll tell yas – nobody. And yet here we are, celebrating the twentieth birthday of one of HammerFall’s outright best slabs of metallic glory. If truth be told, it’s actually their last front-to-back stormer, as sadly the band familiarised themselves increasingly with the law of diminishing returns as their career moved forward, but that’s probably a discussion for another pub and a different day. We’re here to celebrate – and there’s an awful lot to celebrate on this magnificent beast of an album.

Of course you knew that already, but it bears repeating. Riders Of The Storm, Hearts on Fire, the title track, The Unforgiving Blade, On The Edge of Honour – all true metal classics, all shiny and as headbang worthy today as they were twenty years ago. It’s a pleasure to crack open a can and crank up the stereo for a little nostalgia fix, but does that warrant a trip to the record and tape exchange to shell out for an old favourite gain? Especially when, from where I’m typing, I can see my original version looking at me nervously, hoping the bin isn’t beckoning…

Possibly not, but then you find out there are seven ‘pre-production’ versions of some of the best tracks, which whilst obviously not a s big and bombastic as their finished cousins do enable the listener to hear the songs in a more ‘bare’bones’ environment. That’s not everyone’s bag, obviously but I love it; three old classics in the form of Heeding The Call, Steel Meets Steel and Renegade appear in unplugged form as well, not to mention the Crimson Thunder Medley, another live offering featuring – well, you’ll have to find that out for yourself!

Crimson Thunder – 20 Year Anniversary Edition is out now.