DragonForce have been around long enough for everyone to know what they’re about: fast guitar riffs, ambitious vocals and fantastical themes. However, Maximum Overload is the perfect example of how a band can grow, progress and surprise you as they explore their musical ideas, and while DragonForce have kept everything we love about them, their latest album definitely has a few tricks up its sleeve.
There is no way DragonForce could make an album that doesn’t contain guitar riffs so fast they almost make your fingers bleed just listening to them. It’s their trademark move, their definitive sound, and the thing fans love most about them, so it’s no wonder Maximum Overload still produces plenty of it. ‘Three Hammers’ has an epic guitar intro that makes it easy to see where bands such as Bullet For My Valentine and Avenged Sevenfold have taken inspiration for their own guitar solos. It must be impossible for metal bands not to look up to guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman. Tracks such as ‘Extraction Zone’ and ‘City of Gold’ show off their unbelievable speed, and even though we all know that this is just what DragonForce do, it still manages to baffle and impress us.
However, with Maximum Overload it’s the vocals that need some serious applause. ‘No More’ and ‘Defenders’ both produce vocals of stadium-filling strength, especially with the anthemic backing vocals shouting some of the album’s best sing-a-long moments that cement the band’s place as a solid rock band. With the fantastical vocals of ‘Symphony of the Night’, this track wouldn’t be out of place on a Fearless Vampire Killers album, showing how their influence has transcended throughout genres other than metal. DragonForce seem to have branched out from their original rule of ‘fast and heavy is best’, and these new dimensions to the band have opened them up to a whole plethora of new sounds instead of their old repetition. For example, if the vocals of ‘The Sun is Dead’ were stripped away from the music, they would barely be distinguishable from an ‘80s power ballad- who’d have thought?!
The final track, a cover of Jonny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ pretty much sums up DragonForce and Maximum Overload. The cover is unrecognisable except for the familiar tune hidden behind furious guitar shredding and the amazing yet dirty vocal rendition of Johnny Cash’s original country intonation, which show how this album has struck the balance between old and new just right.
