Prayers of Steel

Many people overlook Rage. They are one of the earliest German power metal bands, and one of the most enduring, yet they seem to fall by the wayside most of the time. This album gets overlooked with even more levels on top of that! Even if your tastes were refined enough to become a fan of Rage, you may have still been overlooking what is essentially their first album. In a lot of cases of bands that had a different name early on that had a release, said release tends to be a bit primitive, if not just outright bad. Here it’s a different story, with Prayers of Steel being even better than many Rage albums.

If you favor the early speed metal Rage album’s you’re certain to enjoy this as well. We have some faster fare like on Faster than Hell, Battlefield, and Adoration as well as more traditional heavy metal paced songs like the title track, Bloodlust, and Rise of the Creature. In the later years Peavy Wagner had a penchant for experimentation and forward thinking and if that is what tickles your fancy, you can probably move on. Every track here is straightforward heavy/speed metal, and thankfully each song is executed well. The only ones that lag a bit behind is Sword made of Steel and Halloween, with guitar lines that don’t hook the memory very well, though Peavy’s vocals are pretty memorable throughout those songs as well.

The production is surprisingly good for such an early German speed metal record, better then Reign of Fear in fact. The vocals are louder and clearer than the first couple Rage albums, and Peavy’s voice was as wild and goofy as ever on this album. His chaotic whiny delivery will always be dealmaker or breaker for people, so I recommend giving a listen before spending any money. The instruments are crunchy (surprising, as most of these early speed metal albums had thinner sounding guitars) and well mixed. Production is what gives this a slight edge over some of the later Rage albums.

The production value may mask the rawness of the songwriting and lyrics here; don’t be fooled! The riffs are in a happy medium between thrash and power metal that many of the proto German power metal bands started out playing that is hard to find in music from outside of this period of time. Simple but effective. The lyrics were supposedly a contest between the band members to out-ridiculous each other. I think they were slacking in that regard, as there are bands that peddle this subject matter earnestly! So, it could’ve been way goofier, but I do enjoy the Manowarish metal aggrandizing of Sword made of Steel, the ‘satanism’ of songs like the title track or Assorted(what?) by Satan, and the classic speed-metal-about-speed of Faster than Hell.

If you’re reading this review with zero background in Peavy Wagner and crews’ music, I’d recommend starting with Perfect Man, Reflections of a Shadow, or The Missing Link. For fans wondering if digging this far back is advised, or just afficionados of the early power/speed metal scene you won’t be disappointed. The one real weakness of the album is there is no one song that is like truly outstanding that I feel the drive to revisit. The beginning to end experience is grade A speed metal though, and well deserving of an 80, or a 4 out of 5.
Highlights:
Rise of the Creature
Faster than Hell
Prayers of Steel
Adoration
South Cross Union