Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Saxon
Label: UDR
Release: 2013
Length: 39:28
Rating: 4/5
So the time has come for the jubilee 20th studio album from the legendary Saxon. Well, how could it not, with all the routine a band this long-lived has piled up. Saxon are just Saxon.
»Sacrifice« carries on the story of its predecessor »Call To Arms« (2011). The basic difference is, once again, the harder production that »Sacrifice« now brings to the table. Saxon invited Andy Sneap to work with them. Apparently the successful partnership between the production guru and the legendary German heavy metal lumberjacks Accept nudged them toward this move. Sneap built his big producer reputation primarily as a sound sculptor for thrash metal bands, so it’s surprising that Saxon went to him for help, but still. »If Accept can do it, why not Saxon too?« Biff Byford surely muttered into his moustache. And mission accomplished! Sneap dressed the dinosaur in the latest fashion in sound production. »Sacrifice« sounds mighty heavy. You could even slap the “heaviest Saxon album” label on it, and yet what holds it back from that title is the feeling that Saxon are sticking to the song arrangements poured over from »Call To Arms«, which flirt with the second half of the nineties, like the albums »Dogs Of War« or »Unleash The Beast«. In that respect, the winner in the heaviest-Saxon-album category is still »Lionheart« (2003) – especially thanks to its power-metal-tinged arrangements.
»Sacrifice« delivers a fistful of dynamite: nine ultra-melodic yet wound-up crushers of the typical Saxon variety. After the expected teasing intro (Procession), the band explodes with the title track, an occult dedication to the rituals of sacrificing to the sun god, as the Inca and Aztec civilizations once practiced it.
Made In Belfast is definitely one of the album’s best tracks. Second in the running order, it’s a mini epic suite with an added Irish mandolin arrangement, marked by a mid-tempo pace backed by outstanding production contrast between the venomous stomp of the snare drum and the tried-and-tested aesthetic of ultra-scorching guitars of pure riff lineage. About Wariors Of The Road you could say it’s »Motorcycle Man re-recorded in 2013«. Rock n’ roll meets heavy metal in the traditional Saxon manner, with sonic updates as the new times dictate. Guardians Of The Tomb counts as a bastion of typical Euro power metal. In this track Saxon also lean heavily on plasma-like twin-guitar harmonies in extended riff passages, which they use to liven up the proceedings dynamically and with a good dose of routine. Stand Up And Fight is another turn toward retro impulses and proven templates that Saxon have carried in them since the early eighties, crossed with the ultra pomp of modern Euro power metal culture (the chorus). Walking the Steel and/or Wheels Of Terror are typical niches of Biff’s sermon, which effectively sustains, across the rest of the album, the recognizable dramatic yet teasing premise of Saxon’s statements. No misses. The band turns an already “sold” riff a thousand and one ways. With the brilliance of the vast majority that the greatest music gurus have when handling the magic of metal. Standing In The Queue is a classically built rock n’ roller, set at the end, that could easily have turned up on one of Saxon’s mid-eighties records, like »Innocence Is No Excuse«.
The guitars have picked up a touch of the sharpness of Accept’s onslaught on their last two albums. But that only surfaces once you dig deeper into the album’s substance. So it sits in the background. The focus is on maintaining the typical and unique figure of the one-of-a-kind Saxon enigma, which has evidently survived the new atomic age with »Sacrifice« too.
Legends can’t miss the target. There’s simply too much routine in the fingers. Biff knows exactly what to do for his verse to hit with full force in the plasma of the melody of those sung-out verses. Scarratt and Quinn keep delivering masterful solutions from their toolbox of magic metal riffs. The rhythm section works with the filigree calibration of the gear train in the most precise Swiss watch. »Sacrifice« is another excellent Saxon document and fresh proof of the great vitality of an inexhaustible metal beast who, after more than 35 years, keeps the elder statesman of the metal craft right up there among the best at what they do!
Lineup
Biff Byford – vocals
Paul Quinn – guitar
Doug Scarratt – guitar
Nibbs Carter – bass
Nigel Glockler – drums
Production
Andy Sneap
Tracklist
01. Procession
02. Sacrifice
03. Made In Belfast
04. Warriors Of The Road
05. Guardians Of The Tomb
06. Stand Up And Fight
07. Walking The Steel
08. Night Of The Wolf
09. Wheels Of Terror
10. Standing In A Queue
