Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Refuge
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2018
Length: 55:28
Rating: 4/5
Refuge, a German heavy metal band built from the classic lineup of Hamburg veterans Rage, from their run in the late eighties up to the album “The Missing Link”, are putting out their studio debut. Who’d have thought that Refuge, who came together totally out of the blue after reuniting in 2014 under the name Tres Hombres at a special »incognito« gig, played in complete secrecy in the German town of Heme, would carry on and stick around long enough for a studio debut to happen.
Yep. Rage in the lineup of Peter Peavy Wagner (vocals, bass), Manni Schmidt (guitar) and Christos Efthimiadis (drums) are back together, with one difference: they’re not called Rage, they’re called Refuge. Huge respect to Peavy for still having the drive at his age. He keeps up an unbelievable level of activity. In the spring he did a new tour with Rage to promote the new album, and now he’s already heading back to the stage with the Refuge album. A crafty move, no doubt. Peavy, as the boss of both bands, earns twice as much, a double fee.
And then there’s the album »Solitary Man«. If the new Rage sound like a mix of the old Rage and the later ones with Victor Smolski in the lineup, Refuge are a full-on catapult back to the days of the classic Rage albums »Perfect Man«, »Secrets In A Wierd World«, »Reflections Of A Shadows«, »Trapped« and »The Missing Link«. That is, the Rage albums this trio, the one we’re hearing now on »Solitary Men«, put together between 1988 and 1993. Where did those days go? Anyway. Production and sound. It’s like it was pulled out of a jar of 4% aldehyde. Intact. Like a genie popping out of the bottle. The tone Manni Schmidt uses is an incredible reincarnation of those times, but with the necessary fresh coat of paint, of course, which lets these old, ridiculously experienced farts keep up with all the shiny new gadgets of sound production in the new millennium.
Freshness, in the playing, the performance and the songwriting alike. Or let’s put it this way: chemistry being born in the moment between three legends of the German heavy metal scene. Manni Schmidt fascinates all over again with his knack for shaping distinctive, spellbinding guitar phrases, and at the same time he blows you away with excellent solos, the kind he later left his mark with on the »post-Uwe Lulis« Grave Digger albums, released between 2001 and 2009. Everything clicks. Peavy’s piercing voice roars and squeals at full force again. Sure, over the years it’s become »thicker and lower«, but it keeps its incredible power and vitality. Then there are Manni Schmidt’s punchy, razor-sharp guitar phrases, and the jolting, explosive drum rolls of Christos Efthimiadis. From the first second of the album to the last. No matter the song. It’s clear there must be quite a few old ideas that sat dormant until this trio fired up. It’s great that Peavy got Schmidt back on stage, because Schmidt counts as one of the hardest-hitting heavy metal guitarists the German heavy metal scene produced in the generation that got German metal on its feet in the eighties. This very album also shows, indirectly, everything Grave Digger lost in musical expression when Schmidt left. In We Owe A Life To Death, Schmiodt is downright brilliant in his solo ideas. Refuge are caustic, jagged, vicious! The transitional passages and the exits from the middle-eight sections are bursting with vivid ideas, which of course include harmonies in thirds. Some riffs are also slightly widened »at their tips«, which is why »Solitary Men« works so rudimentary, abrasive and raw. Blunt and uncomplicated. It kicks and bites you right in the face. It hits first time, no messing around, and it’s a nostalgic tribute to the Hamburg heavy metal scene of the eighties and to the “surviving” Rage fans, who swear above all by the band’s years around the turn of the eighties into the nineties. Brilliant.
Lineup
Peter Peavy Wagner – vocals, bass
Manni Schmidt – guitar
Christos Efthimiadis – drums
Production
Refuge
Track list
01. Summer’s Winter
02. The Man In The Ivory Tower
03. Bleeding From Inside
04. From The Ashes
05. Living On The Edge Of Time
06. We Owe A Life To Death
07. Mind Over Matter
08. Let Me Go
09. Hell Freeze Over
10. Waterfalls
11. Another Kind Of Madness (bonus track)
