Biff Byford and the rest of the gang in Saxon have to be getting
\nreally pissed off. They’ve been cranking out albums since the ’80s,
\nand are considered one of the forefathers of the New Wave Of
\nBritish Heavy Metal. Yet they’ve never been able to capture an
\naudience like Iron Maiden. Instead, they’ve marched to their own
\nbeat, with thir small but loyal legion of fans, putting out albums
\nthat have been quite pleasing — at least insofar as the ones I’ve
\nlistened to.<\/p>\n
\nMetalhead<\/i>, the band’s 1999 release, is another one of those
\ndiscs which sadly seems to be destined to become a forgotten gem.
\nToo bad that the bulk of the civilized metal world doesn’t know
\nwhat they’re missing in this band, as this disc keeps a successful
\nstreak alive for Byford and crew.<\/p>\n
Following an uncredited intro track (performed by Nigel
\nGlockler), Saxon kick off with the title track, and proceed to do
\nwhat they’ve done best for so long — play rock music which will
\nsuck the listener in hook, line and sinker. Sure, there’s not as
\nmuch flash in the guitar work of Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt, but
\nin the whole picture (where the song is the thing of importance),
\nthey don’t need to be doing Joe Satriani impressions.<\/p>\n
That’s what is special about both
\nMetalhead<\/i> and Saxon. There is great emphasis placed on the
\nsong, not in showmanship. If anything, this helps to tone down the
\nmusic to a point where even someone who claims they don’t like
\nmetal would be willing to give songs like “Are We Travellers In
\nTime,” “What Goes Around,” “All Guns Blazing” and “Sea Of Life” a
\nfighting chance.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, there’s still the occasional tie to the old days, like
\nwhen Byford lets loose with a balls-on-a-benchsaw scream or they
\nheavily invoke evil imagery as they do on “Song Of Evil” (hey, at
\nleast they don’t hide it); these are the only times where things go
\na little south for Saxon. I’d prefer to see them manipulate the
\nmusic so it sounds relevant in 2000 than trying to recapture old
\nglory. (To the band’s defense, they rarely fall into this trap.)
\nAnd there are one or two songs, such as “Piss Off” and “Prisoner,”
\nthat aren’t the easiest to get into.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for Saxon, the missteps are few, and the joys on
\nMetalhead<\/i> are many. Saxon has been in the music game for a
\nlong time, and it would really be nice to see their efforts
\nrewarded somehow. If they could re-awaken interest in the band with
\nthis disc, something tells me they’d be considered one of the
\nleaders of the Third Wave Of British Heavy Metal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5878],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36908","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-saxon","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36908"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36908"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}