PERPETUAL RAGE hailing from Kuopio, Finland were founded in 2009. They play old-school Heavy Metal and "Flames From Below" is their third full-length album. Lyrically, the songs are based on war, horror, and science fiction stories. From the current band members, Tomi Viiltola and Petri Hallikainen are at PERPETUAL RAGE since the beginning in 2009. "Flames From Below" was released via Thy Bare Tree, a digital label specialized in Thrash, Death, Doom, and Heavy Metal. It has a total length of approximately 48 minutes.

The first three songs on "Flames From Below" represent the style of PERPETUAL RAGE pretty well: heavy and catchy guitar riffs, melodic guitar solos, and powerful vocals. The rhythm is kept mid-tempo throughout without varying too much. The songs reminded me on early songs from IRON MAIDEN and HELLOWEEN. Riffs, melodies, and vocals sounded all familiar to me. Clearly, PERPETUAL RAGE have their role models and do not experiment a lot.

"Enlighted By Darkness" and "Down To The Wire" are two songs where the pace is slowed down. Both songs are very powerful and contain excellent melodic guitar solos. "Down To The Wire" is perhaps the highlight of this album: heavy rhythm guitar, excellent solo, sing-along melodies, and Tomi Viiltola being at his best vocally. The song has the potential to become a fan favorite and a live highlight in the future.

The second half of the album is less convincing: pace is generally slower, guitar riffs and solos are solid though but lack the energy and are less memorable compared to the first songs on the album. The title song is a good example for this, check out the official video of "Flames From Below" on YouTube using the link given below. The last song "The Edge Of Time" is a reminder on what Heavy Metal is all about: powerful rhythm guitar, melodic guitar solos that want you to play air guitar, and unique high-pitched vocals.

"Flames From Below" is a well-produced album. PERPETUAL RAGE play classical Heavy Metal with all elements the fan can wish for: powerful guitar rhythms, neat solos, melodic sound, songs that are written for live shows and meant to be sing-alongs. They do not experiment with their approach to Heavy Metal, the sound is authentic even though some riffs sound familiar to bands from the eighties. The album starts very energetic and fresh, unfortunately, PERPETUAL RAGE cannot keep this level throughout the whole album. "Flames From Below" will have their share of fans and it would be interesting to see how the band performs their new material live.