Heart Afire – Prophets Of Rage

Ohhh. This is interesting. Remember me kinda criticising Prophets Of Rage when they first dropped the PE cover as their calling card? I called it a Kareoke show. Then they blew my hair back with Unfuck The World and we talked about using words as blunt intruments (they were winning me over) in my end of 2017 list I gave them props for Take Me Higher and fully got on board with the power of Rage mixed with the vocals of Chuck D and Cypress Hill. But still it was a simple maths equation. RATM+PE= Living on the 110 or RATM x Cypress+PE = Legalize Me.

It worked but it wasn’t really yet it’s own thing. Now we have Heart Afire. 30 seconds in I’m suprized not to be calling out Tom Morello riffs like lyrics (you do it too, don’t pretend you don’t, Nawwwww Naw Naw Naw Nawwww) there’s layers of electronica and digitized noise over the beats. The guitars are part of the mix not the sole bolt of lightning I was expecting. Texture. that’s what it is. Heart Afire has a texture that the debut album did not have. Lyrically we’re in a different place too.

Heart Afire is empassioned and direct, sure it is. It’s Chuck D, Rage Against the Machine and B-Real after all but it’s not ‘This Thing Sucks, Fuck This Thing’, It’s articulate and it’s inspiring. It’s actually a big slot for B-Real this time. He’s on point for most of the track.

“Can you feel it? Can you shoot? This cake and eat it, Isolation, separation, got your education, grabbed this gun now I face it and my mind is racing”

Heart Afire just went to the top of the playlist for the weekend. Let’s see how long it holds the spot. Does this mean there’s a new album on the way? Turns out it does. I’m actually pretty excitied about that.

This is the hour… Indeed.