First off – I haven’t been on schedule this week at all. This was a combination of the holiday weekend and just general laziness. I’ll have a post today, the next Maiden live album tomorrow, then be back to normal next week.

For today here’s a quick and easy one – this is a new song from metal legends Saxon, who are preparing the release of their 24^th album this coming January. 24 records is absolutely staggering and just a great accomplishment, and that the vast majority of them are solid albums is also fantastic.

This new song Hell, Fire And Damnation was released last week and is the title track from the new record. It is a really nice song, Saxon have had a winning metal formula down now for quite awhile so it’s no huge surprise. The music does suit the pretty heavy topic at hand, which of course are also three of my favorite things – hell, fire and damnation.

I am a bit unclear as to one member of Saxon’s present line-up. The following are in place – Biff Byford as the band’s constant presence on vocals, guitarist Dug Scarratt, Bassist Nibbs Carter and drummer Nigel Glockler are all along for the ride. Back earlier in 2023, co-founding member Paul Quinn retired from touring. It was assumed he was going to be involved with future recording endeavors, but here we have an interesting quirk without a ready answer.

To replace Quinn in the touring line-up, Saxon recrutied longtime Diamond Head mainstay Brian Tatler. He was billed as a touring replacement and did state in certain terms that he would also be continuing with Diamond Head. However, the video clearly features Tatler in it and the video blurb touts the guitar duo of Scarratt and Tatler, so going by these bits of information it appears Brian Tatler is fully Saxon’s second guitarist. I’m sure all of this will be made clearer as the album’s release is closer.

That is about all for this one, it’ll be one of many albums I’m looking forward to next year. I’m curious also to see just how much longer Saxon goes on, but at this point I won’t doubt the great British beast to continue for several more years, anyway.