Mouth Of Swords (Special Edition)

UK-based prog metal band The Safety Fire made a name for themselves as being something decidedly different with their 2012 debut album, Grind The Ocean. The band has returned with Mouth Of Swords, which doesn't merely pick up where Grind The Ocean left off; it builds on the established breakneck momentum as the band's second album in less than two years.

Guitarist / producer Derya "Dez" Nagle agrees that it's quite unusual in this day and age for a band to pull off such a feat. "I do most of the writing," says Dez, "so I started with the new album in December 2012 and finished in March 2013. As soon as I finished writing we went straight into the studio because I wanted to keep the immediacy of the music and keep it high energy. That was important, especially with the type of music we do because I think if we sat around and waited to record it, it would just sound old and stuck in the mud."

Mouth Of Swords is very much a progressive metal album. The Safety Fire draw from a large pool of influences, from bands they've always listened to - Deftones, Tool, Alice In Chains - to former tourmates Between The Buried And Me, Protest The Hero and Gojira.