Sacrifice is the twentieth studio
album by the evergreen British heavy metal band Saxon. Thirty odd years ago Saxon
were the front runners in the NWOBHM genre
releasing their fist album in 1979 the then Yorkshire based band have since gone
on to achieve massive acclaim worldwide.
On
average these days Saxon manage an album every three years and have hit a
winning formula, I recon pretty much all their songs fit into three categories,
‘historical’, ‘social’ and ‘industrial’ and Sacrifice is no exception to that rule.
It
all opens up with Procession an
intro to the title track, Procession
evokes images of a steaming Central American jungle with ziggurats and pyramids
busting forth from the foliage with maybe a monkey or two chattering away in
the leafy canopy. Suddenly we’re into track two (track one proper); Sacrifice falls into the ‘historical’
category it’s all about human sacrifice at the hands of some Mayan or Aztec
priest. Musically it kicks on at a fair lick with some of the heaviest guitar
sounds of the whole album. Track five is another of the historical songs
opening with some ‘Chinese’ jingly chimes Guardians
of the Tomb is another song with heavy riffs and a frantic pace to it, the
lyrics relate the story of the Chinese emperor who made the terracotta army,
basically play this song over the trailer for ‘The Mummy – Tomb of the Dragon
Emperor’ and you’ll get the idea. Track eight is probably my favourite song of
the whole album, Night of the Wolf
has overtones of Frozen Rainbow the
best song on Saxon’s first ever album, with lyrics like ‘far beyond the forest
in a land of ice and snow’ you can make that connection yourself, it conjures
up images of a long ago Transylvania populated by wolf packs, vampires and
crammed full of sizzling gypsies. The song has great atmosphere as well as some
cracking lead guitar breaks and a stupendous double kick drum beat.
Moving
onto the ‘social’ category of songs and track four loosely fits in there, like Motorcycle Man the opening track from
their 1980 seminal album Wheels of
Steel, Warriors of the Road begins with screaming engines roaring around a
track but this time they’re formula one cars not motorcycles. It’s a fast paced
song, most of them are on Sacrifice,
at one point a clip of racing commentary fades in telling us Ayrton Senna is
coming to the track, it’s just a shame the commentator isn’t the legendary Murray
‘what am I saying’ Walker, oh well you can’t have everything can you? Track six
is Stand up and Fight and most
definitely fit’s into the ‘social’ category, this song is a blueprint of what
Saxon songs are all about, sticking it to the man, standing up for what you
believe in, rock and roll, backs to the wall, keeping the faith etc etc, and it
bloody well does you good to hear it as well. I would recommend a dose of Stand up and Fight to be taken at least
four times a day. The final track of the album seems like it should be the
penultimate track, Standing in a Queue
leaves this listener wanting another song, on Saxon’s last album, Call to Arms they finish with an
orchestrated version of the title track, perhaps the reason why they haven’t
done that this time round is because the ‘deluxe digipack’ version of Sacrifice has a bonus CD with acoustic
and orchestrated versions of old songs. Anyway Standing in a Queue is a ploddy song about a subject we all
understand, not one day goes by without everyone of us ending up wasting our
time queuing for something or other, this song relates that and some, it rubs
it in so far I feel like I’m still standing in that damned line, sadly this is
the weakest song of the album and not a great one to end on sooooo…
It’s
a good job I saved the ‘industrial’ songs till last init? Track three opens up
with some nifty mandolin strumming to set the locale of the song, Made in Belfast is all about the
leviathan’s of metal that were and still are fabricated in the Belfast docks. The brotherhood of
welders, platers, chippies and sparkies that produced some of the most iconic
ships the world has ever seen, there and I never mentioned the titanic once
(doh!). Track seven is Walking the Steel
another song that works hard but never labours it transports us to the city of New York and the construction of
skyscrapers. Not just any old skyscrapers I might add this one is ‘rising from
the ashes, for all the world to see’ resurrecting the twin towers to touch the
sky, this song will evoke many emotions in the western world and if someday
they do rebuild on NY’s ground zero the guy’s who ‘walk the steel’ of that
construct will give us all hope for the future. The real penultimate song on Sacrifice is Wheels of Terror ‘Industrial’ in many respects it’s a graphic
account of what happens if you get in the way of a division of battle tanks ‘wheels
of terror crushing all before’ you really get a feel of the power of this song,
lead singer Biff sounds like he’s relishing every word.
These
days Saxon’s line-up is Biff Byford (lead vocals) Paul Quinn (lead guitar) Doug
Scarratt (lead guitar) Nibbs Carter (bass) and Nigel Glockler (drums) a line-up
that’s been stable since 2005 when Glockler rejoined the band after being
absent from the line-up for several years. They will be touring all over the
world during 2013 to promote the new album; the thing about Saxon is they’re rarely
off tour these days playing high profile festivals like Waken, Download and the
Monsters of Rock Cruise of the Caribbean as well as their own headlining shows.
The
deluxe digipack of Sacrifice is not
only packed with slick glossy art work printed alongside the lyrics to the songs
but it also contains a five track bonus CD. Five specially recorded versions of
songs from Saxon’s back catalogue, track one is an orchestrated version of Crusader, the title track from the
bands 1984 sixth album. I was looking forward to this version and it didn’t let
me down, it’s an evocative song that loses nothing but gains plenty from this
treatment. Track two of the bonus disc is also from the Crusader album, Just Let Me
Rock, on here it’s a re recorded version and is not too dissimilar to the
original but it’s interesting to hear it again almost thirty years after it’s
original recording. The other re recording is track five, Forever Free is the title track of the bands 1992 eleventh album
and not one of my favourites however this version of the song is worthy of
inclusion on the bonus disc and it’s good to here a Saxon song I don’t listen
to very often. The two remaining songs are acoustic versions of Requiem and Frozen Rainbow, the latter song from Saxon’s debut album way back
in 79’ is one of my all-time favourite Saxon songs, hang on a minute let’s say
that again, it’s one of my all-time favourite songs, period. A haunting song
that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time I hear it, this
is an interesting recording, not as good as the original but then again I’m not
over keen on acoustic versions of songs, however this is still an accomplished
piece of work, brilliantly done. Requiem
is from 1991’s Solid Ball of Rock
one of the all-time best Saxon albums and this version of the song is probably
better than the original, another ‘standing on end’ hair moment for me and
lyrically very poignant now we’re losing more and more of our rock heroes as
the clock keeps on ticking. Saxon’s twentieth studio album doesn’t disappoint,
not many bands, if any, can boast that amount of work and manage to keep up the
quality of writing that is on Sacrifice…
GD.
Sacrifice is out now and can be
purchased at all good record stores or on line from the official Saxon website http://www.saxon747.com/en/index.php/shop
