Rawk roundup – Magnum vs. Iron Savior vs. Words Of Farewell

Rawk roundup – Magnum vs. Iron Savior vs. Words Of Farewell

MAGNUM
Escape From The Shadow Garden
Steamhammer / SPV

Album number nineteen from British melodic progsters, and you won’t be surprised to learn that the song remains the same. See, apart from their brief affair with the world of pop, Magnum have been putting out the same album for a very long time now. Luckliy for all, their album is a very good album indeed.

You might be taken aback, however, were you to plonk your needle down at the beginining of Side 1 (ask your grandparents), because it sounds for a moment as though Magnum have went all metal on ‘Live ‘Til You Die’. But after that they settle down into their beloved groove with some top notch Tony Clarkin tunes.

It’s a natural follow up to the last few Magnum releases, and although Bob Catley can’t quite hit all the notes he did in years gone by, he’s still streets ahead of most rock vocalists. It’s a mainly mellow release, with songs like ‘Don’t Fall Asleep’ and ‘The Valley Of Tears’ the best of them, although they do remember how to rock on ‘Too Many Clowns’. Fans will lap it up, and they’ll be sure to hear some tuneage on the forthcoming tour.

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19th April SOUTHAMPTON – The Brook
20th April BUCKLEY – Tivoli
22nd April OXFORD – O2
23rd April BRISTOL – O2
24th April NORWICH – Waterfront
25th April LEAMINGTON SPA – Assembly Halls
26th April MANCHESTER – The Ritz
28th April NOTTINGHAM – Rock City
29th April GLASGOW – Garage
30th April NEWCASTLE – O2
2nd May HOLMFIRTH – Picturedome
3rd May WOLVERHAMPTON – Wulfrun Hall
4th May LONDON – Islington Town Hall

IRON SAVIOR
Rise Of The Hero
AFM

Aiiieee! For sure, it’s time for some power metal. Now despite their misspelt name Iron Savio(u)r, are actually German, and started life with both Helloween fella Kai Hansen and Blind Guardian drummer Thomen Stauch joining with well respected producer Piet Sielck.

Naturally, they sounded like a mix of Helloween and Blind Guardian, and not much has changed in the intervening years. It’s balls to the wall, foot on the monitor, none more power metal. And it’s none of that mid-tempo nonsense, either. In fact, you could do yourself a mischief if you went at it too hard to the lies of ‘Thunder From The Mountains’ and ‘Firestorm’.

They do throw a couple of curveballs, with one slower tune, and they even throw in a cover version. Unusually, it’s not a metal monster, instead it’s something by someone called Mando Diao. Apparently, ‘Dance With Somebody’ was a huge indie hit over in Europe land, and was even used on Dancing With The Stars. Anyway, it’s a bit shit, unlike the rest of the album, which is classic old school metal.

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WORDS OF FAREWELL
The Black Wild Yonder
AFM

Finally for today, it’s some progressive death metal. Which doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me, as I grew up in a world where metal was metal, but that’s what Words Of Farewell are. They got together in Germany back in 2006, and this is their second full length album, following on from their debut, “Immersion”.

I’m not overly sure where the progressive tag comes from, as my aged ears seem to be listening to a fairly straight down the middle melodic death metal band, with all the Swedish connotations that throws up. But they are very good at what they do, and are certainly fine musicians.

The riff meter is set high, and songs like ‘Continuum Shift’ certainly know how to blast. The nearest they get to actual prog metal is ‘Damaged Beyond Repair’, which is not only keyboard driven, but the best track on the album by far. Hopefully that’s a direction they pursue as it was the one song that got me hitting the repeat button a bit sharpish.

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