Label: SPV / Steamhammer Records
Release date: 08.03.2011
Production: Jim Morris
Album length: 48.51 min
Genre: Power Metal
Even though it’s no longer breaking news, we can’t just walk past the fact that this year saw the release of the last official studio record from Colorado’s American power metallers Jag Panzer, “The Scourge Of The Light”. The album came out in early spring 2011, and by midsummer band boss Mark Briody had officially announced that Jag Panzer had “retired”, effectively putting the band to rest for good.
Despite a handful of truly landmark albums over the past decade, which pretty much redefined the American approach to power metal for the new millennium, the band never managed to break the ice and reach international recognition, or reap a decent harvest given how much it had sown. Jag Panzer simply remain among that global handful of unjustly overlooked bands, a kind of “well-kept secret” that only the most dedicated power metal die-hards ever dig up. It was only the latest album, “The Scourge Of The Light”, that brought the band some visible success, landing at No. 117 on the American Billboard chart of best-selling albums a week after its release. However you look at it, it was most likely this life on the edge, scraping by, that led Briody to his final decision to close the Jag Panzer story once and for all.
But this is no testament to some kind of pathetic self-pity. Picture the last stand of the Spartan Leonidas against the Persians! “You’ll get my head, but you’ll pay for it with yours too!” – that’s more or less the vibe. “The Scourge Of The Light” is a fantastic album from head to toe, and after it Jag Panzer no longer seem to be up to it. Polished down to the last detail, the band spits fire with the full force of creative inspiration, and the material radiates the raw intensity of all those traditional trademarks that make the name Jag Panzer instantly recognizable to every true heavy metal devotee!
The band, which appeared on the scene in the early eighties, naturally picked up the tradition of the American approach to heavy metal. An old-school approach, bold and bitingly aggressive, quickly tagged with the “speed” label, packed with hellishly fast playing that sits atop the innate, elemental aggression of the guitar riff, yet always with a clear feel for melodic, epic bombast. “American style”, of course. Throw in the occasional “post-thrash” flavor in the riffs, then drench it all in a generous helping of baroque melodic cosmetics, with melodic ornaments flicking across the riffs, often caught in harmonies in thirds. These last traits, from the album “The Age Of Mastery” (1998) onward, brought Jag Panzer closer in general to the ears of European power metal fans. That’s why the band has always been more appreciated in Europe than in North America, where it comes from. That’s the curse of those small, “European-smelling” power metal bands from the US, like Virgin Steele, even if they’re brewed from a completely different musical rhetoric.
The album opener, the anthemic Condemned To Fight, immediately nails the description in the previous paragraph. A grabby riff, a little steel-hardened baroque night music, Conklin’s unmistakable vocals roaring (compared to the band’s past work) with undiminished authority, in a full-lunged rush of melodic command. The first instrumental passage confirms that Christian Lasegue is the perfect answer to Chris Broderick, who left the band in 2008 to join the lucrative Megadeth. The lineup swap has proven to be more than a success. The songs are once again built from plenty of sudden tempo shifts and strings of lead motifs, with the arranging in this respect inherited from Iron Maiden, played the American way, of course. More aggressive, faster, technically much better and on a higher level.
The choruses have an atmospheric “crescendo” in which Conklin’s vocal range squeezes out its maximum melodic payoff, and the same goes for the songs’ grabby melodic allure. The mood is dark, dramatic, but at every point on the album solemn and epic in effect.
The songs practically compete with each other over which will take the crown of lead track in all its exposed epic bombast. In terms of ideas and arrangement, “The Scourge Of The Light” is an album of supple, shifting lead motifs and high dynamic flow. Only on Cycles is the pomp trend held back a bit, as the darkness finally overpowers the song’s solemn reach. Right after it, the ultra-catchy chorus of Overlord puts things back in their place. The engagement with the legacy of the classics from the baroque era comes through most in the closing stretch of the album, on the last two songs, Burn and then The Book Of Kells. The latter especially, a “mini suite” with added string arrangements and a subtle, understated vocal intro, revives the band’s classic works, like The Moors (“The Age Of Mastery”) or the quieter moments of “Thane To The Throne” (2000), and carries the album to its atmospheric peak at the close. The album was produced once again in Florida, at Morrisound studio, so it keeps the traditional sonic heritage of past records, hitting straight ahead and kicking with full balls. That means that, as far as power metal goes, it sounds far more scorching, real and commanding when you compare the production on “The Scourge Of Light” with Jag Panzer’s European contemporaries (I’m pointing my finger at you, Helloween!).
“The Scourge Of The Light” hasn’t lost a single shred of classic Jag Panzer expression! It’s the document of an honorable parting cry from a band with a big heart, which, whatever the curse of being unjustly overlooked, stayed true and devoted to its heart to the very end. “The Scourge Of The Light” is the closing testament to the greatness of Jag Panzer; to borrow from Judas Priest, “One Shot At Glory”. Let’s hope the band’s “retirement” just means a longer break!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Track list:
01. Condemned To Fight
02. The Setting Of The Sun
03. Bringing On The End
04. Call To Arms
05. Cycles
06. Overlord
07. Let It Out
08. Union
09. Burn
10. The Book Of Kells
Lineup:
Harry Conklin – vocals
Mark Briody – guitar
Christian Lasegue – guitar
John Tetley – bass guitar
Rikard Stjernquist – drums
