Artist: Rage
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2006
Rating: 3/5
Soundchaser is history, and as a nod to it Rage have penned a 20-minute epic suite, enriched with the sounds of the Prague “Lingua Mortis” orchestra, whom the band already worked with in the second half of the ’90s. So what have Wagner, Smolski and Terrana cooked up this time?
“Speak Of The Dead” is really made up of two parts, with a clear dividing line between them. The first is the 20-minute composition Suite Lingua Mortis, a mix of traditional Rage metal and classical orchestration. Of course, guitar god Smolski is brilliant and reliably himself, shredding with that jaw-dropping polish, and Mike Terrana manages some serious “pistol-fire” drumming with his rolls, the kind that usually leave listeners breathless like it’s nothing, and this time is no different. The orchestra brings life and feeling to the playing, and the suite genuinely comes alive. It’s a seriously bold move, and one modern Rage clearly wanted badly to pull off. The suite is a proper requiem and deserves a real chance to get under your skin.
Rage struck just the right balance. They kept their unbending metal stance and made something that still sounds fresh and is appealingly interesting. The “ultra-melodic” guitar quite literally helps this daring suite fly. Peavy’s vocals are par for the course, and they castrate the suite’s epic scope and anthemic pomp to a certain degree, keeping the composition grounded. The suite demands a lot of patience, because a true headbanger wants instant roaring metal ecstasy, and he’ll struggle to find much of it here, even though Rage convincingly spit fire a few times. The 20-minute suite will probably bore real metalheads to death, because Rage are simply too gritty a band, and Peavy’s furiously raspy voice just doesn’t belong in musical “symphonizing”. On the other hand, it’s exactly this voice that gives the suite its weight, so we can say Rage have once again made something of their own and something new. The suite is actually a welcome idea, since it kills any chance of over-cloning “Soundchaser” (2003). At the same time, listening to it, you can’t help wondering how it would’ve turned out as a 20-minute instrumental that would definitely have gone 100 an hour, because it would’ve been the first time Rage ever did an instrumental that long! Remember the 10-minute instrumental “rally jamming” in the song Unitiy! Fans wouldn’t have been bothered by an instrumental like that and would’ve taken it on board without a second thought. Because the suite is so fragmented in its motifs, it takes a little longer to fight your way through it. But once it creeps into your ears, its running time flies by in a snap.
The songs that follow are definitely the real deal. The second part shows Rage in a completely different light. The trio is tearing it up again like mad and shows no mercy doing it. Here Rage have dropped every trace of epic grandeur and they’re angrier than they’ve been in a long time. The second part delivers seven killers running from 3:30 to 5:15. There’s no symphonic makeup to be found, and Rage go in old-school, like a properly fired-up “power metal trio”. The band is enraged, and the songs No Fear, Full Moon, Kill Your Gods (with a fantastic instrumental middle section), Turn My World Around, Be With Me Or Be Gone and Speak Of The Dead seem rawer and more destructive than the tracks on “Soundchaser” (2003). The songs carry the traditional Rage style, penned of course by Peavy Wagner, and the frameworks are once again impressively seasoned with the out-of-this-world playing of the Belarusian guitar wonder Victor Smolski, not to mention Mike Terrana’s usual breakneck drumming. The record has a dark, morbidly depressive feel, wrapped in mourning and melancholy, which neither “Unity” (2002) nor “Soundchaser” had to this degree. The lyrics return to the favorite themes of life and death, journeys into the beyond, flying souls, the afterlife,…
“Speak Of The Dead” is above all a tactical album. Rage have deftly dodged potential album “repetitiveness” on it, especially by adding the new suite. At the same time, the renewed “thrashing” tendencies and a slight stylistic flirtation with the early nineties, when they were especially famous for their untamed sharpness and rawness, come as a surprise. The guys simply steer skillfully through standards they’ve wisely mastered.
Lineup
Peavy Wagner – vocals, bass guitar
Victor Smolski – guitar, keyboards
Mike Terrana – drums
Production
Rage & Charlie Czajkowski
Tracklist
Suite Lingua Mortis (Tracks 1-8):
01. Mortituri Te Salutant
02. Prelude Of Souls
03. Innocent
04. Depression
05. No Regrets
06. Confusion
07. Black
08. Beauty
09. No Fear
10. Soul Survivor
11. Full Moon
12. Kill Your Gods
13. Turn My World Around
14. Be With Me Or Be Gone
15. Speak Of The Dead
Album length: 53:12
