Smiles abound when getting the chance to be on the ground floor of a newer act from Sweden with strong pedigree for classic heavy metal. Sacred is a quintet with musicians that have past plus present ties to acts like Vicious Rumors, Air Raid, Crystal Eyes, Katana, Lancer, and Seven Thorns among others. Fire to Ice as their debut album features nine originals beyond the cover song that will send people home appeased – an odyssey into the land of soaring vocals, twin guitar lines, thunderous bass/drum support, and anthems that bring decades of heroic traditional material hopefully to light to the current fanbase.
Certain elements need to be in place for modest appeal – specific requisites such as a strong guitar tandem bursting out of the gate that can handle all the thoughtful rhythms, exciting lead breaks, as well as unison twin harmony angles that elevate energy to peak levels in this genre. The axe play between Jonatan Hallberg and Christoffer Cederstrand melds together aspects of early US, UK, and European heritage – thoughts like Iron Maiden, Dio, Liege Lord, all the way to Hammerfall or Nocturnal Rites appear when taking in the speedier “Gateway to the Gods” or the more epic leaning “On the Verge of Becoming a Shadow”. Galloping nature starts in a varied drum foundation where every hit from the double kick and snare to toms and cymbals becomes that much more meaningful – Pontus Andrén checking off all the boxes on winning cuts like “Caught in a Snowstorm” or the uplifting Riot-esque “Nights of Madness”. Thunder / lightning strikes open the proceedings for the longest song “The Flying Dutchman”, an almost eight-minute arrangement that’s very Maiden-esque in its tempo gear shifts, multitude of cultural harmony instrumental spots, as well as thoughtful bass sequences from Robin Utbult that will get the hordes cheering or clapping to the key hooks.
When you have all of that in place, the last piece of the puzzle to push things into the stratosphere is an iron lunged-style vocalist – and that’s definitely here with Gustav Blide. His abilities to go from soothing lows to eagle highs convey a lot of the Halford/Dickinson-esque power in their prime – yet he is able to inject that extra level of personal nuance that may reflect what you hear in early Geoff Tate or current Todd Michael Hall. Highlights for what he can execute include his mountain top chorus ascension on the aforementioned “On the Verge of Becoming a Shadow”, the confident harmonization during “Tyrannical Warfare”, or the resolute determination to hit all those key upper register parts on Sacred’s take of the Queensrÿche staple “Queen of the Reich”.
You don’t hear many bands like Sacred in 2025 that encompass a confident heavy metal base to shine a spotlight on all the powerful, glorious themes which made this style an arena to major festival attraction for decades. Fire To Ice hopefully is just the tip of a flame to what we can expect for the duration of their discography – as they hit it out of the park with this one.