Eighties metal survivors Tokyo Blade are back, and once again they’ve delivered a lot of new material, delivering fourteen new tunes that show, if nothing else, that the band just doesn’t agree with the phrase ‘less is more’…

The Blade are re-entering an arena made significantly more competitive by the release of several albums from contemporaries – Blitzkrieg, Salem UK, Cloven Hoof and Tygers of Pan Tang – last year that saw old reputations bolstered and interest in the NWoBHM flying as high as it has for quite some while. Can they take advantage of this unexpectedly lush seed bed and grow their own little patch of the metal garden to advantage?

On the whole, you’d probably have to say no, and thee are certainly more weeds than attractive blooms strewn across the album (that’s enough Gardening metaphors – Ed). The first portion of the album suffers from a lack of variety as the band grind out riff after riff in search of one that really snags the ear; Vocalist Alan Marsh strains to make himself heard above the din, and by the end of track six, Going With The Flow, the listener might find themselves seriously looking for reasons to carry on listening.

However those that do will be rewarded as the best moments of Time Is The Fire present themselves from track seven, the excellent Samurai-themed headbanger The 47, onwards. In between this track and the Stargazer-styled, Egyptian-themed epic that closes the album, Ramesses, the band come up with some of the best heavy metal of their ‘reformation years’, notwithstanding Marsh’s ongoing mission to shoehorn Phil Lynott into songs where he just doesn’t belong. Soldier On and The Six Hundred – Tokyo Blade’s take on the Charge of the Light Brigade mythos – both belong in the top tier of TB troubadourism, allowing Andy Boulton and John Wiggins to deploy their full array of axe-based assault and battery, reminding us all why we fell in love with this band in the first place all those years ago.

Trimmed of the excess weight, an eight track long version of this album would probably have seen us hailing the return of a resurgent, sleek and deadly Tokyo Blade; Maybe that’s what we’ll get next time?

Time is the Fire releases on January 17th.