Wow, what a nice find this was! Brazilian (by way of Stockholm) quartet Ignite have come up with an incendiary slab of heavy metal in the shape of Cradle of the Wicked!

Blessed with a quite superb production courtesy of Fredrik Nordström, CoTW blasts joyously out of the speakers, endangering any earwax lurking about within five hundred paces of whatever device happens to be pounding out murderous anthems like Nightshift… This is pure, pristine, thrash tinged power metal of the very highest order!

That’s right – power metal it is, but not of the cheesy Euro variety. This band keeps things tight, taut and eminently headbangable thanks to some sharp songwriting and absolutely top-drawer musicianship. New bassist Martin Bellucci adds some frightening four string work on the poundingly insistent Tearing Down The Walls, and his rhythm buddy Mauricio Velasco brings the hammer down throughout with consistently impressive drumming. Megadeth is a name that you’ll often find flashing across your brain as the album unwinds.

The remarkable thing here is the fact that, despite operating at a high cruising speed thanks to Velasco’s superb percussive contributions, you get the sense that this is a band with bags of power to spare. Apart from vocalist Denis Lima‘s amusingly berserk wailings on first track Cradle of the Wicked, Ignited sound like a band in complete control, biding their time and keeping their powder dry. When they decide to fully unleash, I’m completely sure that total mayhem will ensue!

Nordström’s knob-twiddling gives the guitars of Dalton Castro all the hallmarks of greatness – he’s almost as off the scale as Lima on that opening track – and I have to say that, save for a couple of moments where the inspiration just lags a little bit behind the execution, there is quite literally not a dull moment to be found on this cracker of an album. Hats off to all concerned, and let’s see some live actions in support of Cradle of the Wicked very soon!

Cradle of the Wicked releases on October 27th.