Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Bayley, Blaze
Label: Blaze Bayley Recordings
Release: 2017
Running time: 47:30
Rating: 3.5/5
If anyone is a »man who would not die« and if anyone is »relentless and survived it all« (the ups and downs along the way), it’s definitely the legendary Blaze Bayley. The guy, that is, who plugged the vocal hole in the titanic Iron Maiden between 1994 and 1999 and sang on two albums by this, in many ways one of the greatest, still-thundering heavy metal bands of all time.
With his album releases and a backing crew that hasn’t changed in years, Blaze Bayley has grown into an extremely successful club act in his later years. His reputation as a former Iron Maiden singer adds something to that, with fans always expecting at least two or three Iron Maiden songs that Blaze Bayley co-wrote and showing up for that alone, but his style has been pretty much set in stone ever since the debut released in 2000, it doesn’t change all that much, and its starting points remind you of, ah, you guessed it. Iron Maiden, of course.
Blaze will probably never again repeat the strong songwriting moments marked by, say, the debut »Silicon Messiah« or, a bit later, the outstanding albums »Man Who Would Not Die« and »Promise And Terror«, and of course we hope an experiment like »The King Of Metal« never gets a successor. Maybe »The King of Metal« had to come out the way it did precisely so that Bayley could work out which points of his renewed musical vision he still had to build on in order to justify his artistic credibility when bringing in novelties.
»Infinite Entanglement« fixed that decisively, and the extra energetically serrated »Endure And Survive« is, no beating around the bush, an even better album. So. Blaze Bayley rides the classic currents of old-school heavy metal with full confidence once again, and of course it’s again not hard to find family ties with the Iron Maiden albums »The X Factor« and »Virtual XI«, as well as with the most impressive moments of Blaze Bayley’s solo career. That means »Endure And Survive« is another superb achievement from the »seemingly eternally grumpy but defiant metal pipsqueak«, with Bayley managing to work backing vocal harmonies, acoustic passages, and accordion and violin (the acoustic ballad Remember) into the classic heritage of old-school British metal very effectively, and in production terms too the arranging room to maneuver is tightly exploited and the sound is nicely filled out.
There’s once again no shortage of anthemic and bombastic moments. Blaze’s mildly muffled, darkly hollow but strikingly authoritative and uniquely colored vocal approach once again takes center stage on the album, which means the compositions are tailor-made for the singer and the chorus melodies feel very skillfully chosen, grabbing your attention the instant you put this album on. And with plenty of conviction.
Blaze and the crew poured their wealth of ideas into this record brilliantly. You can feel that the bond between Bayley and the excellent Absolva guitarist Chris Appleton has grown even stronger, and it shows in the very cleverly packaged arrangements of the songwriting itself. Appleton’s solos have never before locked in so well with the core of the songs, and the harmonic passages and the atmospheric build-ups of the openings and outros grab you with remarkable conviction and are much tighter too.
With the exception of the last track, Together We Can Move The Sun, which has a less expressive, somewhat drawn-out intro and later outro and could easily have been half as long (well, the message of the concept apparently demanded that kind of arrangement), the rest of the album is pretty much flawless songwriting-wise. The acoustic folk number Remeber, for instance, effectively livens up the atmospheric flow of the album. The old-school recipe in the hands of Blaze Bayley and company takes the artist back to his best creative days with the new album. Let’s hope the man keeps up this kind of songwriting culture for the final part of the conceptual trilogy too. Until then, we’ll gladly listen to the second part every time, which is of course the new album »Endure And Survive«.
Blaze Bayley – Endure And Survive (official video):
Line-up
Blaze Bayley – vocals
Chris Appleton – guitar, backing vocals
Karl Schramm – bass guitar, backing vocals
Martin McNee – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Luke Appleton (Iced Earth, Absolva) – backing vocals
Michelle Scariotta – acoustic guitar, backing vocals, narration
Jo Robinson – backing vocals
Mel Adams – backing vocals
Liz Owen – backing vocals
Thomas Zwijsen – acoustic guitar
Anne Bakker – violin, backing vocals
Corvin Bahn (Uli Jon Roth) – accordion
Aine Brewer – narration
Rob Toogood – backing vocals
Production
Chris Appleton & Blaze Bayley
Track list
1. Endure and Survive (4:36)
2. Escape Velocity (3:28)
3. Blood (4:41)
4. Eating Lies (4:49)
5. Destroyer (4:31)
6. Dawn of the Dead Son (5:30)
7. Remember (4:06)
8. Fight Back (3:32)
9. The World Is Turning the Wrong Way (4:36)
10. Together We Can Move the Sun (8:15)
