Artist: Running Wild
Label: G.U.N. Records
Release: 2002
Rating: 1/5
Oh well… Rock’n’Rolf has been left without a band, and now he IS Running Wild.
So what is there to say about the new album from the German heavy metal legends? Once again, Rock’n’Rolf serves up synthetic drums programmed on a computer called “Angelo Sasso”, whom he thanks on the back of the booklet with “thanks to Angelo Sasso for best drums ever”. If that isn’t the peak of cynicism, I don’t know what is. Rock’n’Rolf has programmed all the fills and rolls on the drums nicely, sure, but he couldn’t hide the suspicious lack of cymbal sound. So the con almost worked. Besides Rolf, the only living creature in the band is the bassist, who answers to the name Peter Pichel, but thanks to the typical production that pushes the highs on the otherwise great-sounding, cranked guitars, the bass guitar once again gets buried, just like it never really stood out with Pichel’s predecessor Bodo Smuszynski either.
There are 10 songs on the record, and there’s also a limited edition version with two bonus tracks, “Powerride” and “Faceless”. The start is punchy, no intro, straight into “Welcome To Hell”, built on open, simple riffs. The chorus sounds like “L.o.v.e. Machine” by W.A.S.P. Excuse me??? “Soulstrippers” carries on the album in the same vein, with dropped chords in the chorus. Where the hell is the fierce picking and the light-speed rhythms that usually adorn Running Wild’s music? The third track, “Brotherhood”, has an extremely pretty intro, like listening to a J.S. Bach harpsichord piece. The song is about the “enlightened ones” (Order Of The Illuminati), sent to shape our destiny. It has some really beautiful melodic passages in the middle and at the end, where (phew, finally) the guitars are layered in thirds and backed by fast rhythms. Finally something typically “wild-running”. But then the chorus is bland and completely kills the song. Next comes the simple “Crossfire”, like it hopped off some early-eighties Judas Priest record, and the same syndrome shows up on the below-average “Detonator” and “Dr. Horror”.
It wasn’t until the fifth track that I first got goosebumps. “Siberian Winter” is an instrumental, and finally this is the Running Wild we know. Wild rhythm, fast picking and tempo changes. My “hair stood on end” too when listening to “Pirate Song”. It’s the fastest song on the album and strongly recalls the golden age of Running Wild and their “Conquistadores” from the album “Port Royal”. Yessssssss!!!! It’s followed by the mid-tempo banger “Unation” with a great chorus backed by the kind of backing vocals typical of their classic masterpiece “Heads Or Tails” from the album “Blazon Stone”. The final ten-minute epic about Lawrence of Arabia, titled “Ghosts”, is another track that definitely stands out in quality and has everything we can expect from classic Running Wild (apart from the synthetic drums). Interesting that on this one Rock’n’Rolf used oriental scales for the first time in his career.
Rolf, I wish you lots of luck putting a band together as soon as possible, because that’s the only way we’ll get to witness Running Wild classics again, instead of the current below-average imitation of early-eighties Judas Priest. Computer drums will never replace the eternally alive Jörg Michael, AC, Ian Finlay or Stefan Schwarzmann.
So nobody will be missing a thing if they skip Running Wild’s latest product. What Running Wild demonstrate on their latest album, giants of music like Saxon, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath or Accept pull off with their originality much, much better.
Lineup
Rock’N’Rolf – vocals, guitar
Peter Pichl – bass guitar
SPECIAL THANKS:
Angelo Sasso – drums
Production
Rock’N’Rolf
Tracklist
1.Welcome to Hell
2.Soulstripper
3.The Brotherhood
4.Crossfire
5.Siberian Winter
6.Detonator
7.Pirate Song
8.Unation
9.Dr. Horror
10.The Ghost
BONUS TRACKS ON THE SPECIAL EDITION:
11.Powerride
12.Faceless
Album length: 55:17
