Hammerfall - Glory to the Brave 20 Year Anniversary Edition (2017)

Glory to the Brave 20 Year Anniversary Edition is a reminder to us that 20 years has passed since the new generation of power metal wave back in the 1997. A great year it was. Hammerfall, in the beginning only as a side project, released this debut with its 10 tracks of pure power metal. Little that they knew (or maybe they knew...) Glory to The Brave will become one of power metal album that catapult the power metal genre back to its glory. In the Southern, an Italian band  Rhapsody of Fire also debut their first album (Legendary Tales ),  which also bring Rhapsody as one of the legend from the era. In their near soil, Nightwish from Finland spring their debut, Angel Fall First, which although not recognized yet, Nightwish will also grow as a big band as today. In the mainland of Europe, Edguy discharge their official debut, Kingdom of Madness. Hammerfall, which is Swedish band, was then part of new power metal generation such as Freedom Call, Dark Moor, Angra from the South America, Sonata Artica, Kamelot from USA,  and Firewind from the Mediterranean sea. Together, these band continued the legacy of their "senior" Helloween, Blind Guardian, Stratovarius and Gamma Ray. Glory to the Brave was an important album that part of this history.

The band remastered all their classic tracks to commemorate their 20th Anniversary. The sound are much clearer, they added more reverb to it, and the guitar distortion got even crunchier than before. Unlike Rhapsody of Fire that re-recorded many of their classic with the new line up in their Into the Legend album,  Hammerfall opted to just remastered their works. The original line up was, surprisingly, Glenn Ljungström as the guitarist that responsible in playing all their classic riffs from the album. Soon, Stefan Elgram joined the band and Hammerfall embraced their further glory with him. As for today, Hammerfall original line up remained Joachim Cans and Oscar Dronjak. The band wisely not re-recorded Glory to the Brave with their current line up.

While their contemporaries try to come up with new direction in power metal : Rhapsody (of Fire) with their theatrical Hollywood score and Nightwish with thick symphonic and female vocalist, Hammerfall done their style with the basic ingredients. Catchy riffs and straightforward song is the trademark of this album. The Dragon Lies Bleeding was extremely basic power metal song. It consisted of one opening riffs and then the whole song run in quiet basic guitar power chord. Same thing with The Metal Age,  the intro riff is just a play harmony of their twin guitar attack. Two songs were a cover version indicated that this was indeed a side project : Child of the Damned was a Warlord cover and Ravenlord was a Stormwitch cover.

For this 20 Year Anniversary Edition, the bonus included another eight tracks live version of the songs. We have listen to this album many times and we are going to listen again. Add this to your collection for sure.

Hammerfall - Glory to the Brave 20 Year Anniversary Edition (2017)

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1. The Dragon Lies Bleeding (Remastered)
2. The Metal Age (Remastered)
3. Hammerfall (Remastered)
4. I Believe (Remastered)
5. Child of the Damned (Remastered)
6. Steel Meets Steel (Remastered)
7. Stone Cold (Remastered)
8. Unchained (Remastered)
9. Glory to the Brave (Remastered)
10. Ravenlord
11. Glory to the Brave (Radio Edit)
12. The Metal Age (Live)
13. Steel Meets Steel (Live)
14. Stone Cold (Live)
15. Glory to the Brave (Live)
16. Hammerfall (Live)
17. The Dragon Lies Bleeding (Live)
18. Glory to the Brave - Medley (Live)


 Joacim Cans – vocals, background harmonies
 Oscar Dronjak – guitar, backing vocals
 Fredrik Larsson – bass guitar, backing vocals
 Glenn Ljungström – guitar
 Jesper Strömblad – drums (Writing credit Only)
 Patrik Räfling – drums