When you know that American metallers Throne of Iron were born from the tears shed after the untimely demise of Manilla Road leading light Mark Shelton, everything else slips neatly into place…

The strains of classic US power metal suffuse everything the band does, though never at the expense of the band’s own character, which shines through proudly in every track. This is celebration rather than recreation, and it’s absolutely bloody brilliant to boot!

Much praise must be heaped Vocalist/guitarist Tucker Thomasson, who also recorded and mixed the album, and heavy metal eminence grise Bart Gabriel, who mastered it; Between them the pair have created a perfect storm that harnesses the band’s natural ear for melody to their raw instrumental prowess, delivering a delicious sound that will please fans of melody and mayhem equally well. Divine Smile is a triumphant melange of stupendous kick drums, portentous backing vocals and tumultuous guitar abuse; when mixed (and mastered) together the result is almost irresistible, and I guarantee satisfaction if you’ve ever owned a patch-dedecked denim cutoff…

Naysayers will decry the overall lack of variety of the material, but Throne of Iron have found their wheelhouse, so why bother tinkering with a winning formula? What they do they do as well as anyone else currently plying their trade in this field, and I for one would rather hear the band belting out anthem after anthem of pure metallic fury than sitting through a group masking their lack of identity behind the ‘experimentation’ banner…

No – it’s metal, true metal – we want, and happily Throne of Iron provide just that on every one of the eleven tracks on this record. I can’t fault a single moment of it, and I’ve got no hesitation in recommending this to anybody with a pulse left beating in their metal heart. Enjoy!

Adventure Two releases on March 7th