Saxon will release their 24th studio album, “Hell, Fire And Damnation”, on January 19th, 2024 via Silver Lining Music. The album’s title track – whose music video can be watched below – is a superlative British heavy metal classic exploring the juxtaposition between good and evil.
When asked about the album’s title, lead singer and founder-member Biff Byford explains: “I’ve had that saying in my head since I was a small boy because my dad used to say it when he was upset. He used to say, ‘Hell, fire, and damnation, what’s tha’ been doing now?!’ when I was ‘messing up his cabbage patch’ or carving things into the kitchen table. It was a very ‘Yorkshire’ saying back in the day.”
“There’s so much music out there about hell and the devil and the occult that I just thought it’s about time somebody wrote one about the battle just between good and evil!” explains Biff. “You can’t sing about the devil without singing about the good guy either, and the song basically says ‘make your choice’. We all have to make the choice, are we evil or are we good? The song’s about that fight.”
“Hell, Fire And Damnation” is an album that sees Saxon investigate all areas of history and mystery amidst ten of their most confident and thunderously powerful songs yet. Biff delivers his richest vocals in years, Nigel Glockler and Nibbs Carter on drums and bass respectively lay down the rhythmic law with bombastic power, and the guitars of Doug Scarratt and Brian Tatler are fresh and fiery, a perfect complement to each other, carrying an overall energy and fury which will have fans salivating.
Musically, Saxon brings it all to the table. There’s a furious tribute to actual heavy metal in the denim & leather coated super-sprint “Fire And Steel”, a wonderful nod to the NWOBHM’s birth in the electric mid-pace “Pirates Of The Airwaves”, but maybe the true treasure amidst the jewels is “There’s Something In Roswell”, with the sort of expansive groove and embrace which deserves arenas.
Produced by Andy Sneap (Judas Priest, Exodus, Accept) and Biff Byford, with Sneap mixing and mastering, “Hell, Fire And Damnation” strides the perfect line between confident, current power, and gloriously irreverent flexing of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal muscle which Saxon co-created.
“I think this album’s one of the best he’s done sound-wise, and he’s done a lot of albums” Biff declares. “It has a raw, vibrant sound… if you compress the total time making this album, it was four weeks tops… you can hear everything brilliantly, nothing’s overcomplicated, and nothing’s over-compressed. The guitar sounds are fucking immense, they’re just great, raw guitar sounds. And we haven’t done a lot of overdubbing on there, it’s just playing. I really like it.”
“Hell, Fire And Damnation” will be available in a variety of formats and pre-orders can be placed at this location.
2024 promises to be a great year for Saxon, with the European tour alongside Judas Priest and Uriah Heep kicking off in the UK in March.
“Getting these shows in March 2024 with Judas Priest and Uriah Heep meant it made sense to push and get the album made faster,” says Biff, “so, we got on with it in haste and pulled it out of the bag. It was tricky, but I think it’s safe to say we managed it well.”
Hell, Fire And Damnation World Tour (Part 1)
- 11 March – OVO Hydro, Glasgow (UK)
- 13 March – First Direct Arena, Leeds (UK)
- 15 March – 3Arena, Dublin (IE)
- 17 March – BIC, Bournemouth (UK)
- 19 March – Resorts World Arena, Birmingham (UK)
- 21 March – OVO Arena Wembley, London (UK)
- 24 March – Festhalle, Frankfurt (DE)
- 25 March – Olympiahalle, München (DE)
- 26 March – Volksbank Messe, Balingen (DE)
- 27 March – Westfalenhalle, Dortmund (DE)
- 29 March – O2 Arena, Prague (CZ)
- 30 March – Tauron Arena, Kraków (PL)
- 1 April – Wiener Stadhalle, Vienna (AT)
- 2 April – Roxy, Ulm (DE)
- 3 April – St. Jakobshalle, Basel (CH)
- 5 April – Halle Tony Garnier, Lyon (FR)
- 6 April – Mediolanum Forum, Milan (IT)
- 8 April – Zénith, Paris (FR)
- 13 June – Sant Jordi Club, Barcelona (ES)
- 15 June – Navarra Arena, Pamplona (ES)
- 17 June – Palacio Vistalegre, Madrid (ES)
- 1 July – Barclays Arena, Hamburg (DE)
- 2 July – Max-Schmeling-Halle, Berlin (DE)
- 4 July – Arena Nürnberger, Nürnberg (DE)
- 8 July – Sap Arena, Mannheim (DE)
- 10 July – Messehalle, Dresden (DE)
