A very professionally played and produced album.

World Fire Brigade comprises three experienced musicians who started off writing together and then took the next step to recording the songs themselves. The three in question are Brett Scallions (Fuel, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger), Sean Danielsen (Smile Empty Soul) and Eddie Wohl (producer for Anthrax and Ill Nino). On this album, Scallions and Danielsen take on vocal and guitar duties with Wohl on keyboards. Guesting on drums is Ken Schalk who is from Scallion´s band Fuel. The two vocalists on the album have similar voices so it is hard to separate them at times and as a result there is a good meshing of harmonies throughout.

The album commences with an ominous keyboard-heavy instrumental, ´The End Of Silence´, which then leads abruptly to the title track which in contrast is very full-on and guitar laden. It is also a sprawling epic with multiple changes of pace and with a nice droning guitar lead throughout.

The next track, ´All You Know´, starts with a vocoder which took me a bit by surprise; the song then morphs into the same vein as the title track. That cannot be said for ´Weight Of The World´ which is a more commercial sounding piece with a catchy question and answer verse between the vocals and the guitar. It also benefits from a jangling acoustic guitar and memorable chorus making it a very complete song.

The quality continues in the next song, ´Shell Of Me´, which has guest guitarist Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) with a distinctive wah-wah guitar solo launched to great effect. On a related subject, further down the album, ´Take Me Away´ and ´Never Saw The Wall´ feature Rob Caggiano from Anthrax.

There is a bit of light and shade in the album and the light is supplied by ´Fly´ which is a short acoustic piece with a whistling outro! Instantaneously, the shade part is handled by ´Don´t Walk Away´ with its brooding deep dropped-´D´ riff.

Strong tracks persist through the tail of the album; notably ´Shot Down´ with its hypnotic guitar riff and phased-out breakdown at the end. Also, the penultimate track, ´Free And Sane´ stands out with the now familiar heart-felt vocal but in this case with a more laid back guitar sound moving the song into a more classic rock mould.

In summary, this is a very professionally played and produced album and if you like angst-ridden rock with a big drum and guitar sound this is the ticket for you.

Rob McKenzie