Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker – Final Trailer due Monday night October 21

The Rise of Skywalker has been light on trailers compared to other Star Wars films.  The final trailer comes this Monday.  What are you hoping to see?

My arbitrary wishes:

  • a Knight of Ren
  • Palpatine
  • Sith troopers
  • Endor
  • Zorii Bliss

How about you?

 

 

#787: Mix CD 19 – “Green Album”

GETTING MORE TALE #787: Mix CD 19 – “The Green Album”

As we’ve done in the past, let’s have a look at a mix CD I dug up, from about a decade ago.  It’s an interesting mix, made mostly of stuff I found online.  Any time I’d gather at least 80 minutes worth of downloads, I’d burn them to a CD.  I considered that to be a much more permanent format.  This disc is really just an archive of things I downloaded during a certain period of time in 2008.  The title 19 suggests that it’s the 19th such archive CD that I burned.  More than that though, I made it a good listen.  As usual there are surprises and a few attempts at buffoonery.  Let’s dive in.

The first thing to notice:  There are 23 tracks on the CD, but 19 listed on the front sleeve.  That means I hid four comedic bits somewhere between the songs, to be discovered by surprise.  That’s why I left off the track numbers.

The opener “Big Yellow Joint” is a jingle from the TV show Arrested Development.  Remember the Banana Stand?  In the 60s it was a popular place to meet to buy and sell weed!  But that’s out of the way quickly and it’s “25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago from a very poor quality mp3.  “25 or 6 to 4” is the definitive rock song with a horn section.  Find me a better one.

Then, seamlessly, it’s an old childhood favourite:  “Bad to the Bone”!  When you make a mix CD, the software generally defaults to a three second gap between songs.  I liked a tighter flow than that, so I always used one second or even no gap.  This disc is almost 80 minutes long so I used every second I could find.  The transitions on my mix CDs are always top notch.  After George Thorogood, it’s Pat Travers with “Snortin’ Whiskey”.  I was probably hearing these tracks on the radio a lot at the time, so I downloaded ’em and burned ’em.

A really terrible sounding mp3 of “Sonic Reducer” by the Dead Boys reflects my love of the movie Hard Core Logo.  It started with the H.C.L. version of “Sonic Reducer”, and then Pearl Jam’s cover.  If I liked those, I figured I should download the original.  But all this proves to me is why you need to buy the CD.  Downloaded versions suck.  This is sonically not up to par and I’m surprised I was satisfied by this 10 years ago.

The first audio hoodwink follows the Dead Boys.  It’s a 30 second clip from the movie Walk Hard, starring John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox.  This clip features Jack Black as Paul McCartney, Paul Rudd as John Lennon, Justin Long as George Harrison, and Jason Schwartzman as Ringo Starr.

Having a chuckle at the Dewey Cox clip is a perfect way to transition over to a couple good reggae songs by Inner Circle: “Sweat” and (of course) “Bad Boys”! Have a laugh, then get down and dance. I like what I did here, if I do say so myself! Going from that back to rock and roll is tricky, but I think I pulled it off with the very poppy “Fire, Ice & Dynamite” by Deep Purple (Mk V). It’s an oddball rarity, only ever appearing on a Deep Purple DVD as a video slideshow.

One of my favourite 80s songs, the Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Grey” still pleases today. I can only handle the Dead in small doses, but this is my favourite of their songs. It’s probably 50% pop and 50% nostalgia. In keeping with the 80s, it’s Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, a live version with the 1999 lineup supposedly intended for the Sandler flick Big Daddy.  Immediately following is a live version of “Dead Flowers” from an earlier time.  Ah, Limewire!  I remember regularly typing in searches like “Guns N’ Roses rare” or “Guns N’ Roses live” and downloading anything I could get my digital digits on.  It was also hit and miss in terms of quality.  These are bootleggy but not excessively so.

I remember watching Napoleon Dynamite a fuck of a lot back then.  I used the presentation Napoleon gave about the Loch Ness monster for the next unlisted comedy bit.  Then it’s another rarity, also only available as a bonus track on a DVD:  “Nobody Knows What It’s Like to Be Lonely” by Motley Crue.  The track is 7:05 long, and every fan of Too Fast For Love needs to hear it and have it.  “Song to Slit Your Wrist By”, which I used to think was by Motley Crue but is actually by Nikki Sixx’s 58, is a waste of time that I shouldn’t have included.  I thought I had downloaded a rare Japanese bonus track.  In a cruel twist, Motley included a 58 song on the Japanese edition of Generation Swine, forcing me to seek it out, not realizing it wasn’t actually Motley Crue.

In the very first instalment of Getting More Tale called That Crush on Avril, my not-so-secret affection for Avril Lavigne was revealed.  Let’s be honest, folks — her second album rocked.  I still like it.  She’s never rocked heavy like that since, and I’ve long since gotten off the train.  This CD has a rare acoustic version of “Complicated”, but far better then that is Weird Al’s parody “A Complicated Song”.

“Why’d you have to go and make me so constipated?
‘Cause right now I’d do anything to just get my bowels evacuated,
In the bathroom I sit and I wait and I strain,
And I sweat and I clench and I feel the pain,
Oh, should I take laxatives or have my colon irrigated?”

Keeping the comedy going, it’s a clip from Arrested Development with Jason Bateman and Michael Cera.  It’s a good show; you should watch it.

In 2008, Harem Scarem released a free official download:  a recent live version of “Hard To Love”.  This was intended as a final gift to fans, since the band were breaking up.  Temporarily, thank you very much!  The live version shows off the band’s impressive singing abilities, and of course being an official download, the sound quality is all but perfect.  I followed that with a live radio performance by ex-Tesla guitarist Tommy Skeoch, a song called “I Left the Circus”.  Well, I think technically he was kicked out of the circus.  It’s a jokey song about Tesla.  According to Skeoch in the intro, one of the guys from Tesla heard it and took it well.  “Although he’s kind of a pompous fuck and I don’t really like him.”  I’m glad I downloaded this; I don’t know how you’d find it today.  Who knows what radio show I downloaded it from.  The LeBrain Library™ is a storehouse for things like this.  I keep things that the record companies lose in massive fires.

Too soon?

In the late 80s, Robbie Robertson had a popular single called “Somewhere Down the Crazy River”, from his solo debut.  Some like it, some hate it, but it’s a remarkable song.  It sounds both retro and futuristic.  It featured a weird electronic instrument called the Omnichord, and an explosive chorus accompanied by Sammy BoDean.  A lot of this CD, scattershot as it is, features songs I enjoyed in my youth, but don’t own the albums.  I should fix that.

After a final sketch from the movie Superbad (“I’m gonna cry myself to sleep every night.  When I’m out partying”) it’s the ultimate rock comedy of all time.  Can you guess what that might be?  No, not Spinal Tap.  No, not Bad News either.  It’s Van Halen’s isolated vocal track of “Runnin With the Devil”!

Weird CD indeed, random but with a lot of effort to make it cohesive and listenable.  I’ll give myself:

4/5 stars

REVIEW: Rancid – …And Out Come the Wolves (1995)

Dedicated to my pal Jason who is about to see Rancid open for the Misfits at Madison Square Gardens.

RANCID – …And Out Come the Wolves (1995 Epitaph)

Some albums earn automatic 5/5 star ratings.  This is one of those albums.  How’s that for a punk rock length review?

5/5 stars

 

 

Oh, alright, you wanted to read a little more with your coffee and slippers and battered & torn old jean jacket this morning?  Fine.  …And Out Come the Wolves is a landmark, spiritually plucked from an earlier time, as if it came out alongside Never Mind the Bollocks and The Ramones instead of Dookie and Smash.  It’s uncompromising, timeless, and relentless.   Best of all, there isn’t a weak track amongst the 19 included.

Rancid are punk rock for music fans.  Check out Matt Freeman’s absolutely nutso bass solo on opening track “Maxwell Murder” (1:25 long).  There’s another on “Lock, Step & Gone”.  The album is sharp but not overproduced; there are plenty of rough edges to scratch your itches on.  The dual vocals of Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen are individual; albeit both are adequately snotty and gravelly.

…And Out Come the Wolves is notable for its ska influence on a number of tracks.  It’s even alluded to in the lyrics:  “Give ’em the boot, the roots, the reggae on my stereo.”  Or, “Echoes of reggae, comin’ through my bedroom wall.”  But even the tunes without the ska boast an abnormally astute sense of melody.  Six tonnes of integrity and a sneer.

Memories:

  • T-Rev’s favourite song was “Roots Radicals”; he got me into the band.  Via the Record Store, I had a four song sampler cassette that included “Roots Radicals”, “Ruby Soho”, “Junkie Man” and “Time Bomb”.
  • Jason’s favourite tunes are the fucking awesome “Disorder & Disarray” and “Journey to the End of the East Bay”.
  • I had a very significant life event associated with “Time Bomb” that I won’t be telling you about.
  • My grunge buddy Aaron strongly hated Rancid and I never understood why.

50 minutes of punk perfection, by four guys who absolutely know their shit.  Each song is different; there is something here for everyone.  Nobody can go wrong, you can only open your world up to something bright and colourful.  …And Out Come the Wolves will blast your adrenal glands up wide open and stimulate your sense of skank.  Do not live your life without it.

5/5 mohawks

 

 

#786: R.I.P. The (Flying) Spatula

“It is with sadness that we announce that as of October 27, 2019, The Spatula Diner will be closing its doors.”

 

Sadness?  For the staff, surely.  For us, it’s more like mixed emotions.  Yes, the Sausagefest crew has enjoyed breakfast there for almost two decades.  We hadn’t planned on returning in 2020 even before the closure.  A shrunken menu and poor service made up our minds for us.  Our favourite meal was the breakfast monstrosity known as the Flesherton Fillup.  Under new management, it ceased to exist.  Remember when Uncle Meat had this conversation in July with the server?

“When did you get rid of the Flesherton Fillup?” he asked.

“Oh, we haven’t had that in a long time,” she responded.

“We were here last year and you had it then, I’m just surprised,” said Meat.

Condescendingly she answered, “Isn’t a year a long time?”

Relatively, but when you’re in a location like Flesherton Ontario where the business is seasonal, expect to be asked that question more than once.

Admittedly, we could have been…more considerate as customers.  We could have called in advance to let them know they were about to be slammed by 30 hungry, sweaty guys.  I would have preferred to do it that way, but was shot down every time!

Goodbye, Flying Spatula.  Many a good steak-n-eggs and Flesherton Fillups were enjoyed there.  But your time had come and parting isn’t always such sweet sorrow.

REVIEW: Wolfsbane – Live Fast, Die Fast (1989 cassette)

WOLFSBANE – Live Fast, Die Fast (1989 Def American cassette)

Blaze Bayley did not emerge from out of nowhere when he joined Iron Maiden.  Six years before The X Factor, Bayley released his debut album with Wolfsbane, produced by Rick frickin’ Rubin of all people.  Presumably this means Rick laid on a couch and didn’t wear shoes.  Let’s have a listen, then.

“Man Hunt” is Van Halen meets Iron Maiden; as bizarre as that concoction may sound is half as much as it is good!  It’s EVH and DLR, “Back in the Village”, hunting for painted ladies.  Blaze shows off some impressive pipes, but guitarist Jase Edwards showcases all the good things you can do with a speedily-played six-string.  Dirty Blaze must have hooked up with a bird according to “Shakin'”, which takes the sound back into the pocket.  A Dokken/Halen hybrid with a touch of sleaze, and certainly harder edged than what most American bands were doing in 1989.  “Killing Machine” sounds a bit like a lost Van Halen demo from 1977 but with a 1980s heavy metal drummer instead of Big Al.  There’s no break between it and “Fell Out of Heaven”, acting like one big multi-parted song.  Blaze is on the make again, sounding like a big dirty Ian Astbury.  Add in the absolutely blitz of “Money to Burn” and you have a definitive “lust” trilogy.

Side two opens with a punchy tune called “Greasy”, possessing an unholy scream that you wish they would have utilized in Maiden.  “I Like It Hot” is the funny summer cruisin’ tune, one the most commercial song on the album that is decidedly not commercial.  You can sing along to the terrific chorus on “All Or Nothing” but the blitzkrieg speed makes it clearly radio unfriendly.  The only power ballad “Tears From a Fool” is harder edged with a long solo, uncompromised and remote.  And with not even a breath’s break, “Pretty Baby” concludes this album-length treatise on picking up chicks in an accelerated manor.

The sonics of this Rick Rubin production are typically dry and crisp, but with an annoying snare drum sound that makes you question his hearing.  He arranged some cool gang vocals with both melody and rawness, but Live Fast, Die Fast doesn’t have any special sonic qualities that scream “Rubin”.

Wolfsbane happened an interesting niche here.  They blended the best aspects of American hard rock, tossed it with some heavy fucking metal, and a singer who didn’t sound like everyone else (with a dirty mind).  It was dangerous and it was different.

Was it good?  Yeah!  To quote the Heavy Metal Overlord, even Rick Rubin couldn’t fuck it up.

4/5 stars.

#785: Seasons End (Oh Deer) + BONUS Nutshell Review: El Camino – A Breaking Bad Movie

A sequel to #774.5: Seasons Ends. Buckle up, it’s a busy one!

GETTING MORE TALE #785: Seasons End (Oh Deer)
+ BONUS Nutshell Review: El Camino – A Breaking Bad Movie
+ BONUS Star Wars – The Black Series 6″ figures “Abandoned” Video Reviews

“Be careful of the deer problem,” said my dad when I phoned him from Lucknow, about 20 or 30 minutes away from the cottage.

“Don’t worry, I’ll drive safe,” I reassured him in that voice that hardly reassured him.

“You know about the deer problem?” he asked to confirm.

No, but now I did.  Funny thing; I’d been driving up to the lake by myself for over 20 years and never came close to hitting a deer.  There are warning signs along all the major roads, some with flashing yellow lights.  Turns out Thanksgiving 2019 was my first on-the-road deer sighting.

It got dark quick after Lucknow, and soon it was like pitch.  I had been driving slower since the sun went down but it was Jen who saw the deer first.  I slowed down carefully until he jumped away unto the brush.  The guy behind me wasn’t paying attention and almost rear-ended me.

It’s so strange to review the dashcam footage afterwards. What felt like an eternal moment of tense surprise was really only seven seconds.*

Until that moment, we were wrapped deep in Iron Maiden.  I played the first album, with Paul Di’Anno, and the bonus tracks for the full-on experience.  This was music I’d been listening to for 35 years and under the weight of all that nostalgia, I immediately began singing along.  I remember “Charlotte the Harlot” coming up just as we were detouring past a town called Dorking.  I don’t know about you, but I think that’s funny.  Once completed, we switched over to Piece of Mind.  That’s the Maiden studio album that I have the longest deep relationship with.  Every word was dancing on my tongue, even “Revelations”.  But then again, I remember having that song memorised back in highschool.  My friend Andy and I sang it back to a rap kid named Patrick Barnes who claimed that metal lyrics are just unintelligible noise and nonsense.

All this Maiden reminiscence led to the writing of a new future chapter of Getting More Tale called “Run 2 the Hills”, a direct sequel to Record Store Tales Part 1.  Look for that one in the near future.

We had the near miss with the deer after both albums were complete, and I’d started on random tunes from Powerslave.  “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was  the song playing when Bambi was spared by some good driving.

Upon arrival, I had get my Netflix fired up to watch El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.  Nutshell review:

EL CAMINO: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019 Netflix)

I didn’t think I cared where Jesse Pinkman went at the end of Breaking Bad.  Turns out, I cared enough to watch this well-written coda to a great TV series.  Aaron Paul rules, equipped with very little dialogue and only his body language.  Paul gives us a hard insight to the PTSD-infested survivor Pinkman.  Every cameo you desire is in store via relevant flashbacks, fleshing out the original series a little bit.  After a while, you, like Pinkman, are disoriented and can’t remember if you’re watching past or present.

4/5 stars

It was a little freaky when I finished the film, went on Twitter, and saw Bryan Cranston announced that Robert Forster had died, just after I watched his final film.

In the morning I wrote up the rough draft of my new Maiden chapter while it was all fresh in my head, but I otherwise accomplished very little, creatively speaking.

I tried, I really did try.  When mom & dad stepped out of the house for a few minutes I thought I could squeeze in time for a Star Wars Black Series video review.  You’ll see what happened.  Something like this occurred any time I attempted to make a video.  So what you see is what you get; I gave up!

Abandoned Reviews

For entertainment use only.  Back off, fanboys!

Instead of using my creative juices for this one final weekend of the lake this season, I decided to pour it into cooking instead.  I picked up three beautiful steaks and a pound of lobster tail. I made some garlic butter, clarified it, and put the tail on the grill.  Everything was phenomenal.  I felt like we ended the season right with these meals.

There was the traditional turkey dinner the following night too, stuffed with goodness, but I feel the lobster tail and the steaks really put a cap on the season.

The drive home was enabled by Twisted Sister’s Live at the Marquee and The Razors Edge by AC/DC.  I don’t know how often I’ve played The Razors Edge in the car since it came out before I could drive.  Could this have been the first time?  I liked it better in the car than I do sitting at home.  As for Twisted Sister, Live at the Marquee is by far their greatest live product.  The raw heavy stage purity can’t be touched.

And now we are home, preparing for the arrival of winter routines and monotony.  Hibernation begins.  But spring will return again, and with it, so will the roadtrips, the steaks, and the sun.

Stay warm, my friends!

* It was just a young deer  When you start having more frequent animal sightings in cottage country like this, it means they are being displaced from somewhere else.  There has been a lot of building and development this year.

REVIEW: Tom Keifer Band – Rise (2019) #keiferband

TOM KEIFER BAND – Rise (2019 Cleopatra)

The most surprising new release of 2019, to this listener anyway, has been the new Tom Keifer album.  It’s been a long time since I’ve given the Cinderella frontman any eartime, and I didn’t know what to expect from him in 2019.  What I got was “Holy Shitballs, this fucking rocks!”  Rise is earthy, bluesy but also with the rock side of Cinderella bursting at the seams.  It almost sounds like a direct continuation of the final Cinderella album Still Climbing.

Wicked slide guitar opens “Touching the Divine”, one of the songs that will directly appeal to fans of Keifer’s old band.  Backed by soulful backing singers, Keifer still reaches for the screamin’ vocals for a good mix of new and old.  Words like “greasy”, “rootsy”, and “heavy” all come to mind.  Even the softer songs have a weight and gravitas that old Cinderella didn’t always have.  Take “Waiting on the Demons” for example.  It’s soft, southern and Band-like.  But it is its own kind of heavy.

The album doesn’t need to be dissected track by track here, but some songs need to be addressed.  The title track “RISE” (all caps!) is stunningly soulful and epic, and many fans have really connected with the slower, marauding “Untitled”.  Whatever songs grab your fancy, you’ll hear something that you like.  Whether it’s a Crowes-like blues, rockers akin to Cinderella, or something new, Tom Keifer’s got a variety of great tunes here.  Not good, but great.  Nothing to skip.  Just 11 songs that will grow on you and then fade as others steal their sunshine.  And the guitar playing?  Keifer and Tony Higbee lay down some serious, grinding six-string hooks.  It’s guitar nirvana for fans of this kind of rock.  Acoustic, electric, slide — doesn’t matter.  It’s all good.

My personal favourite?  “All Amped Up”, the riffiest song of the batch.

Keifer has assembled a stunning band here, a seven-piece including his wife Savannah on vocals and piano.  He took a left turn away from the 80s and into something more real.  It paid off.  This is a contender for the annual Top 5 list, easily.

5/5 stars

REVIEW: Savatage – Fight For the Rock (Steamhammer remaster)

Part Five of the Early Savatage series!

SAVATAGE – Fight For the Rock (Originally 1986, 2002 Steamhammer remaster)

Like many bands then and now, Savatage were led astray by bad management and poor direction by record company executives.  At least they tried.  Hoping to make some headway, Savatage leader Jon Oliva agreed with the record company’s plan for a change in style.  Steering towards hard rock and hoping to become the next Journey, Oliva and company said “what the hell”.  Meanwhile, Jon Oliva had submitted some songs to management to see if any other artists might be interested in recording them: “Lady in Disguise”, “She’s Only Rock ‘n Roll”, and “Crying For Love”.  They turned around and said “No, we want Savatage to record these songs.”

New bassist Johnny Lee Middleton was lined up to replace Keith Collins.  They flew to England on a tourist visa to record the album, only to find Steve “Doc” Wacholz detained at the airport for five hours.  “I’m a golf instructor,” he claimed at customs, but most golf instructors don’t carry drum sticks and sheet music in their carry-on bags.  This is a perfect metaphor for the album Fight For the Rock:  a band masquerading as something they were not.

A big echoey 80s sound blunts the sharp edge that Savatage gained on Power of the Night (produced by Max Norman).  “Fight For the Rock” is a good song, but obviously toned down in comparison to title tracks past.  Most obtrusive are keyboard overdubs by a studio cat, very different from the keys that Jon Oliva would eventually bring into Savatage himself.  These sound like added afterthoughts, not structurally part of the song.  Still, as stated, a good song in that Dokken-Crue mold.  Only the Jon Oliva screams really connect it with early Savatage.

Keyboards return on “Out on the Streets”, a song from Sirens re-recorded.  As a ballad, you can see why the suits thought it would be worth another shot.  A great tune is a great tune, but the pipe-like keyboards don’t do it favours.  “Crying for Love” is a re-recording of “Fighting for Your Love” and one of the songs Oliva wanted another artist to record, perhaps John Waite.  It’s a heavier ballad, not as good as the Sava-demo, but retains some balls.

Hard left turn ahead:  “Day After Day” by Badfinger.  Oliva decided to do this track since he’d be playing the very piano from the original, so why not.  He’d already gone this far.  May as well go all-in.  “Day After Day” is perhaps the least “Savatage” song in their entire catalogue.  A very different Savatage would have evolved had this been a hit for them.  A Savatage more akin to Night Ranger or even Stryper!

There are only two songs that Jon Oliva considers “real” Savatage songs today:  “The Edge of Midnight” and “Hyde”.  They occupy the dead center of the album, closing side one and opening side two.  Although they too are infected by the awkward keyboard overdubs, they are both metallic Savatage lurkers, dark and shadowy.  “Hyde” hits all the right notes, with perfect OIiva lyrics:

“A good man to evil,
From the potion on the table,
Taken by mistake, but now it’s far too late.”

“Lady in Disguise”, which exists in superior demo form, was largely rewritten to be submitted to other artists.  It exists on Fight For the Rock as the third ballad, watered down and rearranged to accommodate a big keyboard hook.  “She’s Only Rock ‘n Roll” is a little more Savatage even though it too was not intended for their use.  It’s a hard rock Savatage, a little Dio-ish and one of the few songs with a recognizable Criss Oliva guitar riff.

Not particularly Sava-like but very good just the same is the Free cover “Wishing Well”.  It and “Day After Day” remain the only true covers that Savatage have ever recorded.  It’s a pummelling arrangement, well performed and strangely appropriate for the Sava-treatment.  It’s like their “Green Manalishi”.  Concluding the album, “Red Light Paradise” has a touch of that occasional Sava-sleaze.  Good track with a nice chug to it, and plenty of screamin’ vocals.

As before, Steamhammer added bonus tracks to the 2002 reissue.  From the Gutter Ballet tour and featuring an expanded lineup with second guitarist Christopher Caffery, it’s two live classics:  “The Dungeons are Calling” and “City Beneath the Surface”.  Could that year, 1990, have been peak Savatage?  That powerful lineup was short lived, as Caffery temporarily left the band at its conclusion.  When he returned, Criss Oliva was gone, killed by a drunk driver.  To the point:  these are killer versions, (and not the same as the live album Ghost in the Ruins).

Steamhammer also provided in-depth liner notes, housed inside a blurry reproduction of the cover art.  That is an unfortunately win/lose.  One is tempted to have two copies of the album, just to have clear original cover art.  Collectors need more that one copy anyway, just to deal with the maze-like bonus track situation through the entire Savatage collection.

As Jon Oliva says in the notes, Fight For the Rock is not a bad album, if you like hard rock.  It’s not really a good Savatage album.  Hey, they tried, right?  They swung for the fences.  And when they failed to hit the grand slam home run, they lost credibility with fans and the rock press.  Still, for those willing to check it out, there are a few rewarding tracks amidst the muck.

3/5 stars

The story continues with these previously posted reviews:

Part Six:  Hall of the Mountain King (1987)
Part Seven:  Gutter Ballet (1989)
Part Eight:  U.S.A. 1990 (live bootleg)
Part Nine:  Streets: A Rock Opera (1991)
Part Ten:  Edge of Thorns (1993) – New singer and death of Criss Oliva

 

 

REVIEW: Savatage – Power of the Night (Steamhammer remaster)

Part Four of the Early Savatage series!

SAVATAGE – Power of the Night (Originally 1985, 2002 Steamhammer remaster)

Raise the first of the metal child!

If any fans were worried that Savatage would “sell out” after signing to Atlantic in 1984, those fears were swiftly cast aside.  Power of the Night, their first on a major label, was produced by metal-meister-to-be, Max Norman.  The band had plenty of material demoed (in a session with Rick Derringer) and were ready for the studio.

Nothing was toned down; if anything, Savatage turned it up.  Melting the speakers with the title track, a fancy keyboard opening might have fooled some.  When the patented Criss Oliva riff commences, you better hold on tight.

“Children of the metal movement,
The legions growing stronger,
Stronger than they believe.”

With Norman at the helm, Savatage achieved a sharp, biting sound.  Relentless beats courtesy of Steve “Dr. Killdrums” Wacholz helped them cement themselves as true metal competitors.  The foursome from Florida were not to be ignored.

Savatage were improving as songwriters.  “Unusual” puts atmosphere over headbangin’ riffs, and effectively so.  Singer Jon Oliva became increasingly interested in keyboards album by album until it eventually became the focus of the band.  Here it works to cloak you in a dark weave of ominous metal.  Then, if you were hungering for more riffs, bow down to the fuckin’ rad* “Warriors”.  Another Criss Oliva riff as only he could write them, “Warriors” rivals Judas Priest for absurd fantasy metal thrills.  It gets a little silly on “Necrophilia”, but the headbangin’ does not wane.   You might break your neck on “Washed Out”, a little speed metal ditty to cure what ails you.

Side two switches the gears a bit with a Scorpions-Dokken hybrid called “Hard for Love”, which generated some faux-controversy in the 80s.  It’s the most commercial Savatage song yet, but it works remarkably well due to the sharp edges; not blunted by improved production values.  Still riding high with quality metal, “Fountain of Youth” takes things to a wizardly world inhabited by Dio and his cohorts.  (Of note:  it’s one of the few Savatage songs with a Doc Wacholz writing credit.)

Savatage’s speed metal adventures can be hit or miss.  “Skull Session” is a miss, though you may enjoy the lyrics about an “X-rated lesson”.  There’s no real melody and the riff isn’t one of Criss’ most notable.  Plenty of screams though.  A mid-tempo “Stuck On Your” doesn’t get the car out of the mud.  It’s just a little dull compared to the scorchers on side one.

Ending Power of the Night on a ballad was a ballsy move, but “In the Dream” is one of the best from the early years.  Indeed, Jon Oliva re-recorded it acoustically for one of the many reissues of Sirens/Dungeons are Calling.  Dr. Killdrums does a fine job of punctuating the song’s drama with short bursts of swinging limbs.

Steamhammer included two live bonus tracks.**  From Cleveland in 1987, a spot-on “Power of the Night” is a furious rendition of a song already smoking hot.  “Sirens” live in Dallas three years later is just as furious, though Jon’s voice is more worn.  They also included excellent liner notes, lengthy and detailed.  Unfortunately the cover art on these Steamhammer reissues is atrociously blurry.

Power of the Night was the last Savatage album with original bassist Keith Collins.  Originally a guitarist, Collins’ bass wasn’t up to snuff at all times so Criss Oliva had to play on several tracks to fix portions they weren’t happy with.  Now that it’s encoded on a little silver disc forever, the final album is tight and punchy.

4/5 stars

Unfortunately, it didn’t sell well enough for Atlantic.  Bumpy road ahead!

* “Warriors” is “fuckin’ rad” according to Holen MaGroin

** Like all Savatage albums, different issues have different sets of bonus tracks.  These will have to be covered at a later time as a “complete” Savatage collection can be an expensive proposition.