Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Running Wild
Label: SPV Records
Release: 2012
Running time: 50:16
Rating: 3/5
Running Wild belong to the league of bands that radically expanded the legacy of Teutonic Euro heavy metal, which, alongside German bands like Rage, Grave Digger, Helloween and so on, took a parallel path of development shortly after the metal boom in Britain, when the »New Wave of British Heavy Metal« movement burst onto the scene. Running Wild developed a distinctively raw heavy metal sound, instantly recognizable, and put out their best albums between 1987 and 1998. From there on, the quality of their last three albums dropped sharply, and the latest one, »Rouges En Vogue«, just hammered the final nail into the coffin of the band’s once-proud stature and reputation. And that’s a band that ranks among the most important representatives of Old World heavy metal (German metal), having helped cement the status of heavy metal across the planet.
After Rolf Kasparek put the band to rest in 2009, which looked like the only sensible solution given the band’s declining reputation after a string of pale studio releases, the man announced in 2011 that Running Wild were reactivated, promising a brand-new studio album.
Rock N’ Rolf hasn’t forgotten how to carve out a proper guitar phrase. The power, the know-how and the talent for building a good riff run in this musician’s blood. His vocals have thickened and dropped lower over the years, and »Shadowmaker« doesn’t hide that either. He’s still nasal, but he carries a distinctive charisma, which is one of the core trademarks of Running Wild’s stature and reputation, and there’s just no doing it without Rolf’s voice. The album is very solid in its own right (especially if we set aside the fact that the name Runing Wild is behind it), but it won’t make happy those fans who swear by the band’s golden output of the eighties and nineties, since it by no means reaches the level of the most prominent Runing Wild works, nor can it measure up to them. So it only makes sense to compare the new album with past ones within the time range of Running Wild studio releases between 1999 and 2005.
If we focus on that period and compare the new album with »Victory«, »The Brotherhood« and »Rouges En Vogue«, it’s clear that the principle of writing guitar riffs stays similar. Running Wild are by no means as fast today; the riffs no longer ride on the framework of a red-hot rally of double bass drum pedals. The riffs are stripped down, open, and in most cases tuned to the rhythm of marching. They do come across as more focused, much better produced and therefore far more substantial than on the last two albums, which is a very, very good sign. Songs like I Am Who I Am (otherwise the faster song on the album) or Me & The Boys (»Rolf, hello?«!?!) feel very naive in their chorus melodies and in fact degrade the album as a whole to a level where it simply can’t be compared with the band’s golden output. If I may caricature a little, the transformation of the famous Treasure Island saying »Pieces of eight« into »Piece of the Action« (the title of the opening track on the »Shadowmake«r album) fits the state of the band, along with what »Shadowmaker« delivers, perfectly and says it all. The song »Into the Black« could, with a different production and a different vocal interpretation, have landed on some W.A.S.P. album. Comparisons with W.A.S.P. go back to the album »The Brotherhood«, so that’s nothing new for Running Wild.
That said, Kasparek hasn’t lost his pirate mojo entirely. Riding on the Tide has absolutely nothing to do with the classic Riding the Storm, but it carries some of that recognizable pirate vibe, and so does Sailing Fire, while Locomotive is especially impressive and, with a bit more dynamite and acceleration, could even bring this point of the album up alongside the band’s older creations (older than 15 years). The best piece, though, is undoubtedly the last one. The song Dracula is a real epic and holds the thin thread between the new Running Wild and the band’s classic days, when it spat out the magical career moments like Treasure Island, Blazon Stone, Battle Of Waterloo, Genesis (the making and the fall of man), Underworld,… In the energy it captures, it naturally comes closest to The Ghost (T.E. Lawrence) from the album »The Brotherhood«. It carries the striking, instantly recognizable ornament of double guitar harmonies in thirds, with which the guitar phrase is peppered. That’s the element that saturates classic Running Wild and that’s so sorely missed on »Shadowmaker« as well.
So. »Shadowmaker« isn’t a bad album. It’s worthy of the band’s return to the living, but it certainly doesn’t bring back that notorious dynamite of untamed wildness that goes hand in hand with the very name »Running Wild«, much less with the band’s classic works. That’s why fans of the band will keep going to future Running Wild shows exclusively to hear the classics released on albums in the eighties and nineties. And that’s the truth. »Shadowmaker« confirms that Running Wild are simply a different band today, and that we simply have to make peace with the fact that Rock N’ Rolf now writes different music, which is still a very solid reflection of the old heavy metal school in every way.
Lineup
Rolf “Rock’n’Rolf” Kasparek – vocals, guitar
Peter “PJ” Jordan – guitar
Peter Pichl – bass guitar
Matthias “Metalmachine” Liebetruth – drums
Production
Rolf “Rock’n’Rolf” Kasparek
Track list
1. Piece Of The Action (4:25)
2. Riding On The Tide (4:18)
3. I Am Who I Am (4:51)
4. Black Shadow (5:13)
5. Locomotive (4:35)
6. Me & The Boys (5:00)
7. Shadowmaker (4:25)
8. Sailing Fire (4:14)
9. Into The Black (4:57)
10. Dracula (7:29)
