ALBUM REVIEW: Live By Fire II – Enforcer

In 2015, Swedish thrashers ENFORCER released Live By Fire, their first album to showcase their incendiary live show, with an audio CD from the Kyttaro Club in Athens, Greece and DVD of their set from the Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo. Five years on and they’re at it again with – appropriately – Live By Fire II. Recorded during their Zenith tour in 2019 and coming from the Circo Volador in Mexico City, Live By Fire II comes via Nuclear Blast.

There are a number of ingredients that go into the making of a truly great live album – a strong back catalogue of songs, a band on the top of their game, the right crowd in front of said band and a production job to bring it all to life for those who weren’t there. ENFORCER nail them all – the fifteen songs played come from their entire career and there are plenty of fan favourites, from the thunderous Death Rides This Night to the timeless Run For Your Life and the CRUE-infused Mesmerized by Fire. The songs from most recent album Zenith are also given their spotlight, with Zenith of the Black Sun standing tall as a monolithic slab of classic metal from the 1980’s brought to life in the year 2021. Even the inclusion of guitar and drum solos and a jam to City Lights from the band’s 2008 debut don’t threaten to present ENFORCER as self-indulgent or playing a bloated set, especially when the combined time of the three is just four minutes of a possible seventy-five.

However, for all that the music has legs and the production is tidy, ENFORCER have played a blinder by  choosing to release their show from Mexico City. The Central and South American countries are renowned for their passion, particularly at concerts, and this is so evident here that it elevates Live By Fire II above its predecessor. The best example is From Beyond, where the crowd turn it into ENFORCER‘s own Fear of the Dark, singing along to the guitars at the beginning and the solo in the middle, but the truth is they’re the MVP throughout the whole set. As soon as ENFORCER present a chance for them to sing, chant ‘HEY!’ or clap, they take it with full gusto; when Olof Wikstrand introduces a song, they respond in earnest. Circo Volador has a maximum capacity of 3000 and at points it sounds like ENFORCER are in front of ten times that amount, all because of what those in front of them are doing.

Considering that there’s only been one studio album since ENFORCER did their last live album, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Scandinavians were looking to their live prowess more than their studio output to garner them more success, but this is far from the case. Given nobody’s played a live show for about 12 months, something like this is a welcome appetiser as the planet nears ever closer to venues opening and bands taking to stages across the world once more, and those who are fans of all metal between 1980 and 1986 will love this in spades.

Rating: 8/10

Live By Fire II is set for release March 19th via Nuclear Blast Records. 

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