ronny munroe the fire within

Released: 28 September 2009 Label: Metal Heaven

When old skool stalwarts Metal Church finally called it a day earlier this year, after struggling on through various members’ retirements through ill health, back problems, diabetes and death, their current vocalist Ronny Munroe, wasn’t ready yet to throw in the towel. Still feeling an urge to rock he has inflicted The Fire Within on an unsuspecting public.

From the very first lyric of the opening track Far in which we “Fly through the night, with the greatest of ease,” the promise of the stuttering 80s style opening riff was let down by the inanely puerile level of the lyrics.

Vocally, Munroe sounds akin to a Bruce Dickinson impersonator with a mild head-cold, and he places great stress on elongating and warbling his vowel sounds, which has the regrettable effect of making every line he sings sound rather melodramatic. He also delivers almost every line on the album in an identical manner, meaning its pretty samey stuff.

The tracks are all mid paced groovy verse / chorus affairs, with competent musicianship on show, but nothing special really in terms of stand out cuts. The drums manage to keep up a fairly insistent double kick, but the guitars lack any kind of brutality to pep the affair up. I suppose as it’s a vocalist's album, though, that is to be expected.

There are a few power ballads thrown in here too, such as Sea of Souls where the lead guitar gets a moment to shine. A few decent tracks such as Delirium, Ivory Towers and the Eastern tinged Demon Opera demonstrate potential.

The album closer is a totally faithful cover of Rainbow’s Man on the Silver Mountain and it totally eclipses anything and everything that precedes it on the album. It says something about a release when a track that is over thirty four years old demonstrates so emphatically that it has all been done before and better a generation ago!

That said however, this style of retro-Metal, isn’t there to be taken entirely seriously and this album made me laugh a number of times. It’s not intending to be deep, meaningful and insightful; rather it is an album that is all about making old skool fist-banging METAL.

Ultimately, if you are a fan of this style and recent Metal Church material, and are still hankering for more, then Ronny is your man!


by Steven Hargraves