SAVAGE – Sons Of Malice

2012
By Shane Pinnegar
7/10

At the tail end of the NWOBHM, Savage burst on the scene in a flurry of KERRANG! attention and U.S. metalhead pronouncements that they were destined to be the new Iron Maiden. Rather an optimistic claim since – apart from a few standouts – their first 2 albums never really rose far above likeable, meat n’ potatoes old school heavy metal.

Many a moon later, Savage are back with a new album and not much has changed from a sonic perspective – old school metal is the name of the game and for 40 odd minutes you can believe hair, thrash or nu metal never happened.

There’s plenty of standout tracks on offer such as the fierce opener The Rage Within, railing against the banking industry which caused our recent financial crises; the excellent bone crusher Waking The Dead, which sees Chris Bradley’s voice in all it’s metal growling glory; the fury and groove of Choose Revolution; NOW brings to mind the mighty Irish rocker Jim Lyttle and Rogue Male, and is another powerful protest song; and Master Of War’s almost Thin Lizzy on steroids groove.

The album is brought down a notch by a couple of plodding clichéd metal songs early on which drag on too long (Black N Blue, Junkyard Dogs) and remind why they perhaps didn’t hit the big time back in the day, but overall it’s great to have Bradley & Andy Dawson back, and new boy Kristian Bradley keeps it in the family (he’s the son of Chris and nephew of Andy!) with some positively shredding axework.

www.reverbnation.com/savagemusicuk

 

Category: CD Reviews