Label: Silver Lining Music
Release date: February 4, 2022
Production: Andy Sneap & Biff Byford
Album length: 44.19 min
Genre: Heavy Metal / N. W. O. B. H. M.
Rating: 9.0/10
Saxon! A band that has survived everything. Literally every mass extinction in the history of planet Earth. And Saxon are going to stick around for a good while yet. Many centuries more, long after the age of man is over. Longer still. Saxon are eternal. And it’s incredible that a whole four years passed between the predecessor “Thunderbolt” (2018) and the latest, freshly released studio effort, “Carpe Diem”. Usually it’s two at most.
You’re more likely to see fish sprout feathers instead of scales than to see Saxon change by even a tiny micron. And those four years mentioned in the previous paragraph mean a lot. “Carpe Diem” is, after all, an album Saxon haven’t managed to pull together since “The Inner Sanctum” – at the very least since “The Inner Sanctum” – a verdict that comes especially from the band’s most demanding and spoiled fans. Not that any Saxon album was ever bad, mind you. Far from it. Every album Saxon have put out in the new millennium remains an absolute must for the true Saxon fan. But that kind of inventive sparkle and creative inspiration is something Saxon hadn’t radiated in ages, not since “Unleash The Beast” (1997), “Killing Ground” (2001), or the aforementioned “The Inner Sanctum” (2007). That’s what these solid four years were about. Plus Biff’s back troubles and health problems, the discovery of a new hobby – at 71, Biff became a keen cyclist – and more. Maybe the release of “Inspirations” (2021, RockLine review), with its very telling title and a dozen covers, also helped fuel this new ‘injection of incredible inspiration’ while getting the band’s fans through four years of waiting. Saxon don’t disappoint, not at all. Especially not this time. They sound refreshed, and the word renaissance fits them especially well here. Even if the new album brings nothing new – and no, this isn’t scientific-discovery territory, Albert Einstein style. Hand on heart, nobody has wanted that from Saxon for many years now.
The Pilgrimage is a fascinating epic that stands proudly next to the band’s mid-tempo bombastic epics like Crusader, Broken Heroes and/or The Eagle Has Landed, and for that reason alone it’s one of the sure highlights of the new record. In idea and composition the track feels as if Saxon wrote it sometime back in 1984, with the feather-light ease of potent stallions brimming with testosterone, even though these are cunning, seasoned old nags rubbed down with every salve going. The song sounds like something Saxon (in their mature years) put together at the peak of their creative powers in their classic era (the mid-eighties). A brilliantly recycled phrase that delivers one of the new album’s biggest charms. Not falling short in that department are the excellent occult, dark and doom-laden Lady in Gray, with subtly slipped-in orchestrations and keyboards, and, toward the end, the ominous Black Is The Night. Those are the definite peaks of the new album when it comes to developing rapacious theatrical drama.
So Saxon really are a band of biblical proportions. Quinn and Scarratt are self-taught guitarists you can recognize from a mile away, who grew up on blues and rock’n’roll, and that comes through once again, not just in the riffs but in the solos too. Alongside the unique vocal charisma of the indestructible Biff Byford, the two guitarists guarantee an absolutely one-of-a-kind Saxon sound in the world of heavy metal. The album opens with its title track much like the album “Unleash The Beast” opens with its title track. In many ways Carpe Diem actually plays the role of Unleash The Beast, right down to Biff Byford’s opening scream. It gives the listener goosebumps right off the bat, and then comes the even faster and even more doomy Age Of Steam, joined in snarling fury by the closing, devastating charger Living In The Limit. And you can’t overlook the ‘dizzying shrapnel’ in the excellent Dumbusters, or the especially devastating character of Super Nova. Yes. There are quite a few seriously sped-up tracks on the new album. There are moments that are every bit as rapacious as the opening title track, as the band vividly captures in All For One. And last but not least, there’s Remember The Fallen, a classic recycled “post Solid Ball Of Rock” Saxon track. In short, the beast is still bloodthirsty and hungry for blood!
This time Saxon dig in insatiable, bristling and fierce, like they haven’t in ages. Bringing Andy Sneap in as sound engineer pulls its weight too; under Biff Byford’s watchful supervision he ‘played around’ with the sonic image of the new album and breathed real freshness into the new songs. Speaking of Biff, it’s worth pointing out that his vocals in the studio sound as if the singer were 25, not 71. Brilliant.
So seize the day! With the new Saxon album, which for the granddads of heavy metal is actually a kind of fresh discovery, even though the band once again does only what it knows, can do and masters best. But after a nice bundle of years, the stars have finally aligned absolutely perfectly again. “Carpe Diem” is one of the best albums Saxon have recorded since 2000.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)
2. Age of Steam
3. The Pilgrimage
4. Dambusters
5. Remember the Fallen
6. Super Nova
7. Lady In Gray
8. All for One
9. Black is the Night
10. Living On the Limit
Line-up:
Biff Byford – vocals
Paul Quinn – guitar
Nigel Glockler – drums
Doug Scarratt – guitar
Nibbs Carter – bass
Guest musician:
Seb Byford – backing vocals
