Label: SPV / Steamhammer Records
Release date: 10.01.2020
Production: Peter “Peavy” Wagner
Album length: 54.49 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8.0 / 10
Rage are legends of German metal. It’s amazing that after so many years of defiance they’re still not wavering, even though, given their huge body of work and past achievements, they could retire in a heartbeat. Instead, they’ve delivered yet another studio album. I wouldn’t open like this if the new record weren’t number 24, if the band’s roots didn’t reach back to the first half of the eighties, and if their leader Peter »Peavy« Wagner hadn’t (more than once) seen hell and heaven along the long road he’s walked. In short, Peavy still loves doing this. A German, a Venezuelan and a Greek. And the German could easily be father to both of the others. So the story isn’t new anymore, but »Wings Of Rage« is the third album in the series by the refreshed Rage, following »Seasons of the Black« (2016), which introduced the new trio, and »The Devil Strikes Again« (2017), which built on it. It’s an effort that, interestingly, still generates plenty of interest, even though Rage don’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore.
It’s no secret anymore that for the revamped Rage, Peavy pulled the songwriting formula typical of the band’s nineties era out of the dusty archives. So most of what’s interesting about the new Rage actually lies in the virtuoso tricks of the young, eager-to-prove-himself guitarist Marcos Rodriguez and in the physical stamina Vassilios “Lucky” Maniatopoulos brings to machine-gunning the drums. Rodriguez is exceptionally well-schooled technically, and his hellishly sharp, ultra-sonic solos more than gratefully shake up the otherwise tried-and-tested songwriting form, which remains, as doctrine, strictly in the hands of the skilled Peter Wagner. With his sharpness, Rodriguez at times even delivers a lovely bounty of neoclassical touches, which still never grab you quite as distinctively as they did back when Victor Smolski played and wrote in the band, but still. That’s not really the point of the new Rage either, even though they’re reheating the old soup, the one from the pre-Smolski era. Right now Rodriguez is an enormously important piece of the puzzle for Peavy, giving the legendary bassist and singer all the consistency and credibility, even in the mature years of the band’s career.
There are, logically, too many tracks again, and that’s been a constant with Rage for a good while now. As a result the album runs too long. Because Peavy knows the trio format is limited in what music it can create, defined in its vision, and because he knows he has to maintain the style that actually defined the band through the eighties and especially the nineties, the old fox once again turned to his tried-and-true trick. He gave A Nameless Grave and Shine A Light orchestral arrangements, and both count as the album’s stronger points. So »Wings Of Rage« very skillfully delivers the typical Rage contour of trashed-out metal from the mid-nineties, which the first half of the album brings in particular, as well as its closing stretch, with the mildly superfluous Blame It To The Truth and the closer For Those Who Wish To Die, which is ambitiously conceived but waters down as a whole, since it fails to deliver the necessary final crescendo. The songs mostly feature that typical bombast in catchy choruses, which Peavy once again pulled off very well. His vocal is, as ever, a double-edged sword, very much »German«, very much »one-dimensionally aggressive«, typically harsh and also nasal, but that’s Rage, and Peavy’s voice actually defines them. You can’t do without it. True, the guy’s voice has dropped quite a bit over the years, but throughout everything he offers on the new album he still brings an explosive dose of power and the aggression the material demands, which so skillfully spices up the new Rage songs too. The cover of Higher than the Sky is definitely an unnecessary move, hinting that the album is undernourished when it comes to fresh ideas, though the band obviously found such a move perfectly fitting. Maybe also because the reworked version is changed enough and works nicely as a refresh. In the band’s catalog, especially when we talk about the iron concert repertoire, this track is Rage’s version of Smoke On The Water, which Peavy got tired of playing, yet at the same time a song that keeps the audience »awake« at the band’s shows. In this revamped version, the band will again be happier to play it. On »Wings Of Rage« this revamped HTTS 2.0 would nicely mask the album’s occasional lack of ideas, if only the band had put the track at the tail end of the album’s tracklist.
Generally speaking, everything is in its place. The trio in its new form keeps cruising on, as is expected and demanded of Rage. The standards set by the Smolski era are admittedly high and unreachable, yet Peavy and his crew clearly want to continue the band’s career from the point where the nineties albums left off. A conformist, safe stance, but one Peavy still handles with skill and knows inside out, and once again it wins him a poker hand full of aces. Fans of classic Rage will surely be thrilled, and »Wings Of Rage« will, more than gratefully, extend their collection of Rage albums.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. True (5:01)
2. Let Them Rest in Peace (4:30)
3. Chasing The Twilight Zone (4:30)
4. Tomorrow (5:02)
5. Wings Of Rage (4:30)
6. Shadow Over Deadland (The Twilight Transition) (0:35)
7. A Nameless Grave (5:59)
8. Don’t Let Me Down (4:56)
9. Shine A Light (6:43)
10. HTTS 2.0 (3:28)
11. Blame It on The Truth (3:54)
12. For Those Who Wish To Die (5:28)
Line-up:
Peter “Peavy” Wagner – vocals, bass guitar
Marcos Rodriguez – guitar
Vassilios “Lucky” Maniatopoulos – drums
