Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Iron Savior
Label: AFM Records
Release: 2017
Length: 94:32
Rating: 5/5
German power metal veterans Iron Savior dropped a double compilation album of newly recorded career classics this December, titled “Reforged – Riding On Fire”. They went down this road because the original versions of their songs are no longer within reach for a lot of fans, mostly thanks to copyright trouble tied to the defunct label Noise Records, where Iron Savior released their first four studio albums between 1997 and 2004.
“Reforged – Riding On Fire” serves up two discs of material picked on a »best of the best« basis. It’s an early-career cross-section of the band’s work. Pretty much every die-hard German power metal and Iron Savior fan, old and new, is going to grab this compilation. The idea is spot on, because the older albums, the self-titled debut »Iron Savior«, its follow-up »Unification«, and the no less excellent successors »Condition Red« and »Battering Ram«, have been impossible to find in record stores for ages now.
Iron Savior frontman Piet Sielck is one of the most seasoned power metal gurus on the old continent. Anyone who knows the guy even a little knows he played one of the key roles in shaping early Helloween, and that his sound engineering skills breathed life into Blind Guardian albums from the early era of their career, when the band was still climbing up the international ladder. Piet Sielck is considered one of the greatest masters of »Hamburg power metal« production. He grabbed the idea of refreshing the Iron Savior classics from the band’s first four albums, and AFM Records’ willingness to put them out again, with both hands, and, as usual, dove into the work with all his famous filigree precision. Sielck is known as an excellent vocalist and guitarist. Since he’s not only the boss and founder of the band but also the main composer and songwriter for Iron Savior, he of course picked the songs that would get a fresh sound and new arrangements.
In their new sonic outfit the songs are a proper demolition tornado, and there’s no difference in quality between the two CDs of this compilation. The tracks don’t follow the order they were written in, they’re mixed up together. In the new versions Sielck has slightly tweaked the melodies of the lead vocal lines here and there. Considering his experience and the 20 years that have passed since the debut, the man keeps incredible vocal power and punch. Some vocal lines in the new versions are set even more demanding, in the sense that you need even more breath to nail them properly in the highest passages. The solos got similar corrections, and the guitar ornaments in the transitional passages too, where a few extra guitar flourishes have been added. But the part Sielck finds most appealing is still to come: tinkering with the sound of the freshly revamped classics. They all bite with an incredible edginess in the guitar phrases, standing on that promised fat, massive wall of sound that radiates the razor-sharp power metal ethos of the true Hamburg school. It doesn’t get any deeper than this!
It’s interesting that, compared to Sielck’s contemporaries who work in Gamma Ray and Helloween, Iron Savior remain the most fiercely loyal to the style laid out by the debut »Iron Savior«. In that sense there are no dips in quality between the albums they’ve released, neither among the first four nor the later ones.
This compilation is eerily reminiscent of a similar move by Gamma Ray, who put out an excellent double-CD compilation called »Blast From the Past« in 2000. On “Reforged – Riding On Fire” everything stands the way it should, and at times even better than on the originals. Piet Sielck knows, can, gets it and, of course, delivers. The tracks stand perfectly level in quality next to each other, like exceptional power metal assaults packed with the heartfelt fire of ravenous epic drama. So both CDs are a real treat for the listener, thanks to Sielck’s heard-and-granted »whims«: as an incurable perfectionist, he got a very good alibi with this compilation to fix a few things in the arrangements and the sound. As said, not just for the Iron Savior fan, but in general, for every true lover of the Hamburg school of power metal.
Line-up
Piet Sielck – vocals, guitar
Joachim “Piesel” Kuestner – guitar
Jan S. Eckert – bass
Patrick Klose – drums
Production
Piet Sielck
Track list
CD 1:
01. Riding On Fire
02. Battering Ram
03. Brave New World
04. Prisoner Of The Void
05. Titans Of Our Time
06. Eye To Eye
07. For The World
08. Mindfeeder
09. Watcher In The Skye
10. Mind Over Matter
CD 2:
11. Warrior
12. Iron Savior
13. Tales Of The Bold
14. No Heroes
15. Break The Curse
16. Condition Red
17. Protector
18. I’ve Been To Hell
19. Atlantis Falling
