Label: AFM Records
Release date: December 4, 2020
Production: Piet Sielck
Album length: 56:28 min
Genre: Power Metal/Heavy Metal
Rating: 10/10
There’s hardly anything new left to say about Iron Savior – the power metal legends from Hamburg – even when they drop a new studio album. In a career that will soon hit the quarter-century mark, Iron Savior have become a byword for consistency whenever the talk turns to a really good studio album. Every band has its ups and downs, and the man at the helm – main songwriter, producer, guitarist and vocalist Piet Sielck – knows that all too well. And as one of the band’s songs says, Iron Savior have in fact been through hell more than once, and they’ve always come back. Stronger every time. Piet Sielck has seen and survived every era of German – let’s just say European – metal, and he’s contributed the lion’s share to the rise and popularization of European power metal. He was there at the original sin and played an important part in shaping Helloween when they were taking their first baby steps in the first half of the eighties; in the first half of the nineties he built the sound of Blind Guardian albums as a producer, and then decided to start a band of his own too.
For all the excellence embodied by the string of Iron Savior albums, led by the latest, “Skycrest”, Iron Savior have never managed to make the kind of noise on the scene that other German bands of their generation did. But one thing is certain. For every fan of true-blue power metal, carved out in the manner of the classic German school, Iron Savior are a real discovery and revelation. No matter which album, because like I said… These sharpened, battle-hardened Germans don’t change their tried-and-tested musical recipe by an inch. Especially not because it’s a winning one, since it always delivers – despite the eternal curse of commercial failure – a guarantee of top quality. “Skycrest” is the band’s tenth proper studio album overall. Besides the studio albums, Iron Savior have so far also released a compilation of re-recorded classics, three EPs, a live album and a re-recorded version of the album “Megatropolis”. (“Megatropolis 2.0”, RockLine review).
“Skycrest” picks up the story from its predecessor “Kill Or Get Killed” (2019, RockLine review). Only a year and eight months passed between the two albums, and it’s downright incredible how Piet Sielck and his crew managed to hold on to all that creative passion, zeal, charge and inspiration and carry it over to “Skycrest”. Reviving the treasure trove of riffs from their early days on the compilation “Reforged – Riding On Fire” (2017, RockLine review) helped make sure “Skycrest” too serves up a string of insanely catchy, signature guitar lines, which are the backbone of this album’s bombastic assault tracks. And that’s exactly what every true Iron Savior fan wants with all their heart.
“Skycrest” has it all. Outstanding production that favors building a bristling wall of sound out of honed, razor-sharp guitar lines, brilliant solo work in the mid-eight passages, a bravura vocal performance from the seasoned, evergreen Sielck, subtle layering of ornamental harmonies in thirds within the passages (there’s plenty of picking across the lines, as is typical for German power metal), lead vocals backed by supporting vocal harmonies, layers of keyboards on top… In short, filigree fine-tuning of the arrangement details at every step of this truly polished piece of work. Sielck’s feel for building atmosphere and mood is superb, and in the choruses the songs hit their theatrical emotional crescendo, with a pre-chorus most often wedged between verse and chorus to crank up that contrasting build-up even more. Then there’s one more staple of this style. It’s called the merciless stampede march of double bass drum pedals and the thick, rattling drive of gleaming bass guitar lines, without which a real power metal album from the ossified Hamburg school is simply unimaginable.
None of this would catch fire with such charm without Piet Sielck’s exceptional songwriting chops and talent. There are eleven new songs, all-new music across a good 56 minutes. Yet not a single second of the album leaves a power metal devotee indifferent. Metal anthems and razor-sharp marches that speak to you with an excellent mix of contrast between the drama of doom and triumphant defiance build up a high level of pomp and bombast, and it’s hard to pick highlights among the songs. The opening title track kicks the album off in the snarling rage of a top-gear assault. Judging by the octane voltage of the devastating slapping it unleashes, Silver Bullet or Souleater could easily have taken the opener’s spot too. The band shows a remarkable musical predatoriness in the chorus melodies, where End of the Rainbow, Our Time Has Come, Welcome to the New World and There Can Be Only One especially stand out. You’d be hard pressed to find songs more classically conceived than Hellbreaker in this corner of power metal. It could easily have landed on some older Gamma Ray album. The starting point? The band members growing up on the sounds of Judas Priest. It’s like listening to a Renaissance-style rediscovery of the riffs of “Staind Class” and “Screaming for Vengeance”, only with Iron Savior flying on a heavy dose of amphetamines the whole way through. Execution without mercy. There’s only one slowed-down song on the album. It’s a real power metal ballad. It’s called Ease Your Pain and it fleetingly recalls the Gamma Ray ballad Pray.
At a time when Piet Sielck’s generational peers have turned into a parody of themselves in their home bands (Grave Digger), can’t find their compass anymore (Running Wild), are wearily hibernating (Gamma Ray) or safely cashing in on old glory (Helloween), Iron Savior with “Skycrest” are (becoming) the last of their kind, defiantly holding the flag of classic (Euro) power metal high, true to their new anthem Raise the Flag of Metal. By all appearances, Iron Savior really are the last flame of the generation that put the power metal genre on its feet, and “Skycrest” trails the best Iron Savior works by not a single millimeter. Loyalty, devotion, faith, defiance. No calculation. You just listen to your heart and follow it. Something no money can measure, no profit can outweigh, and something you can only admire. With a deep bow and respect. “Skycrest” is a triumph of artistic brilliance.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. The Guardian
2. Skycrest
3. Our Time Has Come
4. Hellbreaker
5. Souleater
6. Welcome To The New World
7. There Can Be Only One
8. Silver Bullet
9. Raise The Flag Of Metal
10. End Of The Rainbow
11. Ease Your Pain
12. Ode To The Brave
Line-up:
Piet Sielck – vocals, guitar
Joachim “Piesel” Küstner – guitar
Jan-Sören Eckert – bass
Patrick Klose – drums
