Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Rage
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2012
Duration: 58:00
Rating: 4.5/5
German power metal veterans Rage are unbelievable. They toss out new albums like they’re in a trance. Despite their long-lived defiance, with the band slowly approaching the thirty-year mark of their career, this hard-hitting trio is as fired up and pumped as if they’d been founded yesterday!
»21« is a symbolically titled album. It nods to the century we’re living in, and it’s also the band’s twenty-first studio album overall. Lyrically, Rage don’t stray far from their classic themes, especially the one that loves to dwell on the invisible thin line between real life and the one the soul visits once the physical body is no longer of any use. So these trips to the beyond have been a favorite topic for the big skull collector Peavy and company forever. There’s flirting with the occult, psychic terror, deals with the devil, sleepless nights from being hounded by evil spirits, running from serial killers that leaves you drenched in cold sweat in an instant, and the like. All of it fits the world of metal like a glove.
The new album is less experimental, less varied, less exploratory than the splendid »Strings To A Web« (2010). But unlike »Carved In Stone« (2008), which suffered from a lack of inspiration and freshness – let’s not forget that album was made during the switch from Mike Terrana to Andre Hilgers – »21« keeps up the band’s exceptional creative drive! With this new release, the Smolski-Wagner-Hilgers trio proves they can reach for anything and, with united forces, simply can’t miss the mark. Rage wanted to deliver a truly dark yet damn well wound-up record. »21« sounds considerably rawer than its predecessor »Strings To A Web«, which came down to the band’s conscious decision to focus on writing direct rippers this time, with less “complicating”, and to cut out the symphonic elements entirely, which are otherwise a Rage constant.
On the new album Rage have held on to their whole knack for delivering the infectious, proven winning formula of crushing heaviness mixed with anthemic catchiness. In fact, as the current lineup’s third album, »21« confirms that the chemistry is even more tightly interwoven and its effect even more intense. Hilgers has slotted into the team perfectly, so you really don’t need to miss Mike Terrana anymore. »Strings To A Web« already showed that, but »21« makes it clear that any thought of Terrana is by now downright superfluous. There’s again plenty of furious guitar acrobatics from the unique genius, arranger and multi-instrumentalist named Victor Smolski – you wonder how the hell Wagner and Hilgers can even keep up. Smolski is again excessively venomous in every detail, whether he’s weaving ornaments over the guitar phrases or ripping through every juicily seasoned solo of a proven original. Simple as that. Pure poetry of ballsy guitar playing. For something like that you need the right touch. That’s what separates the average guitarists from the top-tier ones. And Smolski has been showing for years that he belongs among the best metal guitarists in the world!
If we go back to the start of the new millennium, »Welcome To The Other Side« (2001) turned out to be a studio release on the band’s discography that was quickly forgotten, since it was swiftly followed by probably the best albums of Rage’s career, »Unity« (2002) and then »Soundchaser« (2003). To be fair, the big flaw of »Welcome To The Other Side« is its feeble production, which is a real shame, because the album holds some exceptionally beautiful arrangement-and-composition moments of real epic bombast that could have ignited even better! In overall energy vibe, after 58 minutes of playing time, »21« comes close to “Welcome To The Other Side” – especially in its extremely dark atmosphere, the lump in the throat from an intense feeling of deep anxiety, and the occasional energetic vibe. The difference is that »21« has an excellent, possessed, pumped-up-beyond-all-limits production.
The album is a journey through typical Rage rippers that develop from “post-thrashed” opening phrases into a »crescendo« of anthemic, melodic chorus hooks, still untamably commanded by the raw, piercing and voluminous character of Wagner’s beastly yet still melodic singing. That contrast is most succinctly highlighted in Serial Killer, where the band even kicks off with some vocal growling. After an extremely heavy start that builds from the title track to Forever Dead, comes one of the album’s best songs, one that gets under your skin right away: Feel My Pain, with a guitar intro that evokes the feel of the instrumentals on »Welcome To The Other Side«. The song is taken at a mid-tempo and stuffed with an effective dose of melancholy. It’s the album’s first candidate for a single and video release. The band definitely doesn’t run out of fuel and fire from here on, and the album’s string of rippers is capped off by the moody, mid-tempo closer Eternity, which brings yet another infectious anthemic chorus and keeps the listener hooked.
»21« is another triumphant move from this legendary German power metal fortress! With it Rage have kept their exceptional creative inspiration and managed, amid a pile of releases, to put out yet another one that can’t bore you for a second or make you feel the band is getting lost in worn-out, overused phrases. Put bluntly, »21« is »Carved In Stone« fixed down to the last detail! As for the trio of Hilgers, Wagner and Smolski, let’s hope they churn out many more albums like this. This lineup has no shortage of routine, know-how and experience. Combined with creative inspiration, they use that power to forge new albums so deftly that they come along at just two-year intervals, and the band keeps all its credibility. Albums of noble substance, no doubt! “21” is an album of contrast and a vivid departure from “Strings To A Web”, and it proves the band hasn’t lost one bit of creative potency or expressive drive!
Lineup
Peter “Peavy” Wagner – vocals, bass guitar
Victior Smolski – guitar, sampling, keyboards
Andre Hilgers – drums
Production
Charlie Bauerfeind & Victor Smolski
Track list
01. House Wins
02. Twenty One
03. Forever Dead
04. Feel My Pain
05. Serial Killer
06. Psycho Terror
07. Destiny
08. Death Romantic
09. Black And White
10. Concrete Wall
11. Eternally
