Mother's Day

Considering Savatage’s last album was over twenty years ago and both Jon and Zak’s main Sava-lite bands are out of service, not to mention Paul’s gone so there will be no new TSO (unless Jon’s got a copy of ‘Romanov’ sitting in a drawer somewhere), you’ve got to dig deep to find something that fills the void. And so we come to Alta Reign, a band formed by latter day Savatage drummer Jeff Plate and his TSO bandmate Jane Mangini, which apparently has origins that stretch way back. It’s easy to imagine that, as the vocalists here possess voices that were cultivated in the 80s hard rock/AOR movement and have that smooth, cheesy sound to them that can’t really be faked. Given the material here, it’s not really a problem, and in fact adds a lot of originality to what is essentially an album full of progressive AOR metal or something.

You’ll find hints of Savatage here in some of the riffs. Clomping tunes like ‘Thin Red Line’ have that undeniable Oliva stomp, and you’d swear Chris Caffery had written a good chunk of the heavier parts (he shows up on epic closer ‘Rise’, as a matter of fact), but it’s all very much versed in the band’s later years, with even the production resembling ‘Poets And Madmen’. These songs have a lot of moving parts, never totally settling down, but always delivering a hook for the ages. ‘Never Say Never’ could have easily passed for a Foreigner tune if it wasn’t so heavy. I mean, the vocalists here sound like they could front fucking Toto. There’s nothing metal about their delivery or style at all, but it just frigging works. As a unit Alta Reign are tight as a nut, and somehow manage to pool together ideas from prog metal to melodic hard rock without missing a step. There are a couple of nimble power metal moments that sift through too, and Jeff, obviously a heavy hitter, provides a crushing double-bass led approach even during the more sedate segments. Jane Mangini’s keys add a modern symphonic metal vibe, so the only real AOR elements come from the twee approach of duel vocalists Tommy Cook and Collin Holloway. They slather so much cheese over these songs but they never sound greasy in any way. I was wracking my brain to figure out what ‘Mother’s Day’ reminded me of, and eventually it came to me: it’s a dead ringer for Dream Theater’s 1989 debut ‘When Dream And Day Unite’. The construction of the songs, the early USPM vibe, Charlie Dominici’s sleazy 80s vocals; that’s pretty much what ‘Mother’s Day’ sounds like, but with Savatage riffs and orchestral keys.

You get a lot of mileage out of this; it easily impresses on first listen, but then you give it another spin and forget how much some of it rules. Really depends on your mood, as the vocals are so intensely melodic that they can occasionally rub you up the wrong way. What I like about this is how different it is for the players involved. I love how each Savatage-related project provides more of the same based on its intentions. Jon Oliva’s Pain was a continuation of the early Sava sound, Circle II Circle furthered the ideas of Zak’s era, TSO was the ultimate in O’Neill/Oliva magic, and then we have Chris Caffery’s solo albums, which are pretty much the next best thing to Savatage these days. Alta Reign don’t fit into any of this, yet somehow retain snifters of what they learned in Savatage and TSO whilst doing their own thing. And it’s pretty damn enjoyable for all that.

The old adage of better late than never has become something of an understatement of late, as a number of prominent bands and artists have been returning to the airwaves after extended hiatuses to deliver some truly spellbinding offerings. But the unique case of Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra percussionist Jeff Plate’s new project Alta Reign is doubly so, as this has been an happening that has been simmering on the proverbial backburner for about three decades and it hits with the potency of the slow-cooked brilliance of a true master chef. Drawing heavily from his roots as a heavy metal musician back in the late 80s, as well as the theatrics, pomp and progressive rock-tinged splendor of his tenure with his previously noted bands, this outfit’s debut LP Mother’s Day might appear a mere sentimental tribute to the past given the title, but is in fact a intricate mixture of past and present that is in a category all by itself.

Naturally any brainchild of such a well renowned drummer would entail an impressive display from his own performance, but Plate does well to place equal priority in the competency of the musicians tapped for realizing his vision and to making sure that the end result is something that is both impressive and memorable. Fellow TSO band mate and keyboardist Jane Mangini being the most prominently featured cohort in this endeavor, the resulting sonic dimensions of this album are notably dense and rich with texture, bearing a fair degree of similarity to the early works of Dream Theater when Kevin Moore was using his keys to unlock a new universe of sound. The crunchy riff work of Tommy Cook, Collin Holloway and Zach Hamilton, alongside a rock-solid foundational bass display out of Kevin McCarthy do an exemplary job of rounding out the arrangement and also giving it a heavy degree of impact that sets it apart from a typical AOR affair, though the vocal work out of Cook and Holloway approach that degree of smoothness.

In many respects, this is an album that well could have been recorded in the early 1990s and have been potential competition for Dream Theater’s Images And Words, but it does well to acclimate itself to the current state of metal. Graced by a massive modern production and a lofty keyboard backdrop, more nuanced excursions into the world of progressive rock/metal such as “Come Out And Play” and “Thin Red Line” sound very in keeping with the sonic landscape of the 2020s, and possess a solid, heavy edge to the groovy guitar assault beneath the spacey synthesizer lines. Even more impressive is the degree of dynamic range shown in the shorter instrumental material, as the agitated jazzy metallic storm “ESC (Escape)” and the serene atmospheric balladry of “Passage” supply the two most pronounced moments of stylistic contrast. The true standouts of the bunch, however, are the longer and highly involved epic rockers “Mother’s Day” and the adventurous closer “Rise”; each veering the closest to overt Dream Theater territory with a barrage of virtuoso guitar displays courtesy of TSO axe-slingers Joel Hoekstra and Chris Caffery respectively, all the while still maintaining a healthy array of infectious hooks.

With only a week currently under its proverbial belt, 2021 is already proving to be an exciting year for those hungering for more of the high-end metallic cuisine that comes along with such a fold of seasoned veterans of the scene. Though definitely heavily rooted in the trappings of the early 90s when the songs were larger than life but also noted for their syrupy flavor, this is not an album that lives by nostalgia alone, and it becomes pretty clear with each new song that Plate and company have picked up a lot of additional ideas over the past 30 years and brought them into the mix. It goes without saying that the steadfast fan base of Savatage and TSO will go for this, but it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for those who’ve been following the handiwork of Vanden Plas and Ayreon to be taken by a lot of what is going on here. This is a rocking form of metal primed for the thinking man, and also a veritable hurricane of sound for those expecting clear and calm on Mother’s Day.

Originally written for Sonic Perspectives (www.sonicperspectives.com)