Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Rage
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2017
Running time: 52; 12
Rating: 4/5
Thirty-three years of activity for the cult Hamburg metallers Rage is no small thing. The band has been through plenty of ups and downs in its career. Just when it looked like the story was over after Peter Wagner’s split with the brilliant Victor Smolski, Peavy revived the band and brought in two completely new, considerably younger musicians who are practically bursting with the urge to prove themselves.
So last year saw the release of the »comeback« studio album with the telling title »The Devil Strikes Again«, which, after a good year and a half, has been followed by a new effort, the band’s 23rd studio album overall.
Rage recorded the new album with the same lineup, too. Power-trio style, and stylistically they’re once again flirting with the late-eighties era and the turn of the nineties, when the cult albums »The Perfect Man«, »Missing Link« and »Trapped« came out. So? Nothing new. But only at first glance. Add to that markedly better playing technique, drive and freshness that the revamped trio kept and carried over from the very solid predecessor to the new album, plus of course the production touches of modern times, as dictated by how far studio recording techniques have come. So, a sort of mix of old and new. Despite that, this new incarnation of the band has also achieved what was its basic goal. Rage remain Rage. There’s no doubt about that, and at the same time the shake-up brought enough changes in expression, in both arrangement and performance, that this incarnation is marked by a string of recognizable and unique traits when you compare it with every lineup in the band’s rich history.
Peavy would have had a hard time guaranteeing the credibility of the new Rage if Marcos Rodriguez weren’t a perfect blend of exactly what the new Rage are: a combination of old and new. Rodriguez previously played in a Rage tribute band called Soundchaser and can even imitate Victor (some of the passing decorative guitar harmonies in the passages), while his drumming partner in Rage, Vassilios “Lucky” Maniatopoulos, used to be the drum tech of former Rage drummer Chris Efthimiadis, which means he has exactly the qualities Peavy needs to keep the Rage story going credibly and confidently. Peavy is simply Peavy. His bass style and vocal character are the essence without which Rage can’t exist. His voice has dropped lower and thickened over the years, that’s a fact, but the guy has by no means lost the caustic venom in his shouting. On the new album the band serves up a fatter sound that’s also seriously stacked, and Peavy’s vocals still do more than a great job through all of it.
The very start of the new album is strong, with the freshness of ideas in the riff-writing, performance and arrangements surprising you both in the opening (title) track and right after it in Serpents in Disguise. Rage show their defiant bite and strict focus from the get-go, and the album really opens up with full force, dishing out crushing and destructive aggression. Ominous, dark, occult and? Theatrical. The third track, Blackened Karma, was also released as a single and is built the same way. With it, some of that familiar Rage anthemic quality returns to the album, thanks of course to its highly singable chorus. A song we’ll definitely hear at the band’s upcoming shows. Punch and melody hand in hand. From there to the very end, the album keeps up a high-quality consistency in its songwriting. Okay, there are a few phrases that remind you the band used them once, somewhere back two decades ago, but they come across as perfectly unobtrusive. The band swings between fast, rolling rhythmic charging that radiates the old-school charisma of early Teutonic speed and thrash metal, with the riffs in places artfully »thrashed up« again, and choruses that deliver the anthemic, epic quality the band has always had. When it comes to epic, the top spot goes to the closing Farewell, the longest track on the album, a proper little epic suite that departs a bit in style from the rest of the album, so the band sensibly put it at the very tail end. Rodriguez’s solos are a real treat. Maybe the album could have been trimmed a touch. With fewer repetitions of the chorus melodies, which goes especially for the outros of the songs. The repeated chorus melodies get a bit annoying, e.g. in the otherwise very good Justify, which really doesn’t need to run over six minutes. A song like Time Will Tell proves that in December 2015 Rage were once again playing the album »Black In Mind« on a grand scale at their shows. The phrases recall the classic Sent By the Devil. The song could have made it onto »Black in Mind« and/or »End of All Days« without any trouble.
To keep it short: with »Seasons of the Black«, the new incarnation of the cult band Rage has found the right creative platform, pushed the energy and mood of the previous album to an even higher level, and delivered a record that’s even looser, within the creative and songwriting reach of the new-era trio. That’s why the album feels a touch more saturated and, above all, more defined. Especially when you dig into the details of the compositions. An album, then, tailor-made for all Rage fans. The old ones and those who also idolized the Smolski era. Rage keep charging on, untamed and wild. No brakes at all.
Rage – Black Karma (official video):
Lineup
Peter “Peavy” Wagner – vocals, bass guitar
Marcos Rodriguez – guitar
Vassilios “Lucky” Maniatopoulos – drums
Production
Peter “Peavy” Wagner
Track list
1. Season of the Black
2. Serpents in Disguise
3. Blackened Karma
4. Time Will Tell
5. Septic Bite
6. Walk Among the Dead
7. All We Know is Not
8. Gaia
9. Justify
10. Bloodshed in Paradise
11. Farewell
