Label: AFM Records
Release date: 22.11.2017
Album length: 94.32 min
Production: Piet Sielck
Genre: Heavy Metal
German power metal veterans Iron Savior put out a double compilation album of newly recorded classics from their career this December, titled “Reforged – Riding On Fire”. They went for this move because the original versions of the songs are no longer within reach for many fans of their music, mostly because of copyright trouble tied to the defunct label Noise Records, which Iron Savior were signed to between 1997 and 2004, releasing their first four studio albums there.
“Reforged – Riding On Fire” delivers two discs of material picked on a “best of the best” principle. It’s an early-career cross-section of what the band has done. Honestly, every damn die-hard fan of German power metal and of Iron Savior will grab this compilation. Old and new alike. The idea is spot on, because the older albums – the self-titled debut »Iron Savior«, its follow-up »Unification«, and the no less excellent »Condition Red« and »Battering Ram« – have been impossible to find in music stores for ages.
Iron Savior frontman Piet Sielck is one of the most seasoned power metal gurus on the old continent. Anyone who knows the guy even a little knows he played one of the key roles in shaping early Helloween, and that his sound engineering skills breathed life into Blind Guardian albums from the early era, when the band was still climbing the international ladder. Piet Sielck is considered one of the greatest masters of “Hamburg power metal” production. He jumped at the idea of refreshing the Iron Savior classics from the band’s first four albums, and at AFM Records’ willingness to release them again, with both hands, and, as usual, dove into the work with all his well-known filigree precision. Sielck is renowned as an exceptionally good vocalist and guitarist. Since he’s not only the boss and founder of the band but also the main composer and songwriter for Iron Savior, it was of course him who picked the songs that would get a sonic and arrangement makeover.
In their new sonic outfit the songs are a proper wrecking tornado, and there’s no difference in quality between the two CDs of this compilation. The tracks don’t follow the order they were written in, they’re mixed up together. In the new versions Sielck has tweaked the melodies of the lead vocal lines here and there. Considering his experience, and 20 years having passed since the debut, the man keeps an incredible vocal power and punch. So some of the vocal lines in the new versions are set up to be even more demanding, in the sense that you need even more breath to nail them properly in the highest passages. The solos have also received audible corrections, and in places guitar ornaments in the transitional passages too, where a bit of extra guitar decoration has been added. But the part Sielck finds most appealing is still to come. That’s wrestling with the sound of the freshly refreshed classics. Every one of them bites with an incredible sharpness of guitar phrasing, set against a thick, pouting, massive wall of sound that radiates the extreme edge of the power metal ethos of the true Hamburg school. It doesn’t get any deeper than that!
Interestingly, compared with Sielck’s contemporaries who work with Gamma Ray and Helloween, Iron Savior remain the most fiercely loyal to the style set out by the debut »Iron Savior«. In that respect there are no quality wobbles between the albums they’ve released, either, early four or later ones.
This compilation is eerily reminiscent of a similar move by Gamma Ray, who in 2000 put out the excellent double-CD compilation »Blast From the Past«. On “Reforged – Riding On Fire” everything is where it should be, and at times even better than on the originals. Piet Sielck knows, can, understands and, of course, delivers. The tracks stand perfectly level in quality next to each other, like exceptional power metal assault anthems filled with the heartfelt fire of predatory epic drama. So both CDs are a real treat for the listener, with Sielck’s “whims” granted – he’s an incorrigible perfectionist who, with the release of this compilation, got a very good alibi to fix a few things in the arrangements and the sound. As said, not just for the Iron Savior fan, but in general for every true lover of the Hamburg school of power metal.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 10 / 10
Tracklist:
CD 1.:
01. Riding On Fire
02. Battering Ram
03. Brave New World
04. Prisoner Of The Void
05. Titans Of Our Time
06. Eye To Eye
07. For The World
08. Mindfeeder
09. Watcher In The Skye
10. Mind Over Matter
CD 2.:
11. Warrior
12. Iron Savior
13. Tales Of The Bold
14. No Heroes
15. Break The Curse
16. Condition Red
17. Protector
18. I’ve Been To Hell
19. Atlantis Falling
Lineup:
Piet Sielck – vocals, guitar
Joachim “Piesel” Kuestner – guitar
Jan S. Eckert – bass guitar
Patrick Klose – drums
