One of the names you should know from the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal, Sweden’s Enforcer, along with Striker, Night Demon, Haunt, Cauldron, SkullFist, etc, etc. Their first live DVD was released in 2015, this recording is from Mexico City in 2019 in support of their excellent fifth album, Zenith. What do you get from Enforcer?, take Exciter, mix it with the NWOBHM of Angel Witch, Saxon, and Maiden, but the melodic qualities of Tygers of Pan Tang.

Kicking off the show are two from the latest album, single ‘Die For The Devil’ and ‘Searching for You’, followed by ‘Undying Evil’ from the previous album “From Beyond”. What you notice is the band’s sense for pure classic heavy metal aesthetics, speed and mid tempo songs, twin guitars, solos, melodic vocals, and a great chorus. Great to hear that the banter in between songs and crowd noise does not bleed in to the songs much. I really don’t like live albums where the crowd is as loud, or louder than the band. Would rather get the crowd energy in between tracks, or during the intros and outros. Like this recording. The title track to “From Beyond” sees some nice “whoohs” and singing from the crowd in the background, and melodic leads.
‘Death Rides This Night’ from the third album is very much in the NWOBHM spirit, while the more Dio epic melodic build and riffing, the accenting keys, of ‘Zenith of the Black Sun’ follows for variety. ‘Live for the Night’, from their second album “Diamonds”, is fast in speed metal fashion. Raven would be proud. One short guitar and drum solo among seventeen scorchers and rockers. Great melodic sense and splashes of keys during ‘One Thousand Years of Darkness’. These guys know how to keep it heavy, but with a catchy hook. ‘Take Me Out of This Nightmare’ brings me back to Iron Maiden Killers album, the guitar interplay, the leads and how the crowd sings them, the bass lines, and drum patterns.
Looking forward to the DVD release.